I am not from the USA and I don't get the gun nuts either.

Its all well and good saying well its the unregistered guns, guns protect, people kill people etc etc pro gun arguments when you only have to look at a country like the UK which has incredibly strict gun laws, and see that gun related deaths are practically non existent.

Bottom line is you have guns, and you can't control gun related crime.

Other countries may have guns, but they don't have this gun crime culture. Other countries don't have guns, and don't have a problem.

If you have such severe gun crime problems, why even allow certain firearms to be legal??? Its just retarded, most people in the rest of the developed world think this is a bit stupid.

Really I admit, its too late now. You can't just make USA a gun free country overnight, but you can crack down better- except you won't. Because of the wimps in Congress more afraid of losing their power and funding from the pro gun lobbies than doing the right thing.

Having handguns for example are just stupid. Why do you need handguns? They aren't very useful for hunting, they are only useful as compact, concealable lethal anti human weapons. There is no justification, but there are hundreds of millions of the damn things.

Then theres the people that believe having a armed populace protects them from the government.

Really. REALLY? This isn't the 17th century and the USA isn't some banana "republic".

If the United States government were to conduct a policy of genocide, the power it wields will not be effectively stopped by some amateurs with popguns. You have some of the most lethal and advanced military weapons on the planet, if any were to be turned against a particular ethnicity or state or whatever, it would be annihilated. Only foreign military intervention could really turn the tide enough.

Other stable developed populations aren't so frightened of their governments they sit stroking their assault weapons on their porches and swearing that if those lunatics up in the capital running the country try anything I'll be ready...

As a developed, responsible democratic republic you should have evolved beyond this fairly unrealistic and weak pro gun argument. We aren't exactly frightened in the UK we'll need to use force to overthrow the government. It is absurd in such a democratic system, that has been stable for hundreds of years.

Its an utterly laughable justification.

Whether you believe people kill people, or guns kill people, I can guarantee you one thing: if you had no guns, you would have no gun crime. Other crimes? Murders still? Yes, of course! But not gun crime...

There is just no way around this simple logic.

@Computerssayno:

What part of "The vast majority of gun crimes are committed with illegal firearms." and "now that the blueprints for 3D printed guns are on the net, there is no law that will stop them." did you not understand?

We've passed the tipping point where gun control laws will work. We've tried banning assault rifles. We still had school massacres taking place (Columbine). Oh, and if you plan on banning guns here in America, not only will you have to confiscate 400 million legal firearms, and try your best to get the illegal ones, but you then will have a flood of illegal weapons being smuggled in from Mexico as the cartels find clients on this side of the border who want guns or 3D printers so they can make guns (assuming they get banned or regulated heavily). You can get a 3D printer for about $2000, and it wouldn't take much for a criminal enterprise to buy up enough of these to crank out hundreds of guns per day.

There comes a point where you have to realize that law cannot work in certain cases, and in those situations you have to take care of yourself. When your computer can make guns for you, there's no way anybody can stop people from making them. Look at how miserably we failed at trying to ban drugs.

Oh, by the way, gun crime has actually been on the decline in the USA for the past several years, despite the defeat of gun control legislation.

What part of if you have no guns, you have no gun crime do You not understand? Gun crime happens with both legal and illegal weapons.

The reason those illegal firearms are illegal varies, but at some point in their life they were probably legally bought and owned by someone or brought into the country.... And in the system. Their supply from new is likely to have been a legitimate source. Isn't it a major problem that criminals use people with clean records to obtain weapons legally then of course use them illegally? There's lies, damn lies and statistics that you cite about gun crime.

The point is by saying oh now they are illegal and they are used for crime that's ok, that means we're good is pretty thick my friend.

It means that your gun control has failed miserably and requires harsher measures. It requires much more extensive revisions of the gun culture in the USA. Which is what I essentially said. It has failed but nobody really cares about changing that because they are pussies.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Change is necessary.

It means that if nobody had bought the gun in the first place with no demand or you hadn't allowed your gun culture to spiral out of control nobody would even have a gun as commonplace or question it's legality, cos it would simply be illegal no matter what. Being so commonplace already makes them more familiar to people who otherwise would never be able to get hold of a weapon so easily legal again or not

This printing is a different matter. But it still isn't a commonplace thing.

Saying oh well that's it now everybody can have one is just dismissive and unrealistic. No they won't all have them because virtually nobody has 3d printers. To actually access one or buy one costs much much more than buying a cheap legal or illegal gun in the USA and it's certainly easier and less technical to acquire a weapon either way because of your culture and laws!!!

This is the problem. You are blind to obvious simple things when it comes to guns.

The 2nd amendment was created a long time ago when the military force of the government was comparable to the military power of a militia of private citizens. Can you honestly say that if any private citizen or group of them were to try to overthrow the government that they would stand a chance against the military or the police?

It's an outdated legislation from a long time ago. And now it only does more harm than good. There are a lot of fervent supporters of the 2nd amendment ranging from people who are purist interpreters of the constitution to others who just really like guns and want a legal justification for owning them, even if it's at the expense of others.

@Computersaysno

Is there some special hell people get sent to if they're killed by gunfire? Dead is dead.

The only difference the weapon makes is on the side of those defending themselves. Not everyone can wield a knife or a club to the same effect as someone larger, stronger, or more experienced than themselves, but anyone can use a gun. They are equalizers.

What you're proposing is going back to the days when strong people preyed on the weak, old, and disabled.

Jesus Christ you 2 are going to make that bulls$&t argument. I've heard it so many times...there are no weapons that cause mass damage with such ease. With a couple pulls of a trigger you could kill lots of people. It's that simple.

Guns dont kill people. Thats such a poor argument. You might aswell say nuclear bombs dont kill people. Its ignoring the simple fact that guns make killing easier. It enables killing for people that would otherwise be unable to, and it enables people to kill more then they would be able to otherwise. If you dont understand this simple concept you dont understand much.

The difference between the US compared to UK, Japan, etc is that we already have 300M guns.

Do you really think we can recall all of those guns? Gun violence spiked when citizens lost their guns in the UK, imagine that but extended to several decades and a larger spike.

An entire gun ban on the US is a completely unrealistic idea. We're attached to country that smuggles crap in constantly (fortified by unrealistic support for illegal immigration and naturalized citizenship in the wake of enacting government healthcare along with dozens of freebies and cheap provisions), we already have 300M guns, and we're a country steeped in history of guns being necessary to create change (most notably revolution and civil war, all within a mere 300 years) that gives us the confidence that they're necessary.

A gun ban in Japan was easy because they had the barrels of dozens of nations' guns (can you smell the irony?) pointing at them post-WW2. The UK already had much more strict laws on guns for almost 100 years when they enacted a ban. The US is NOOOOOOT comparable to these countries that are CONSTANTLY used as examples.

I'll refer anyone to a psychiatrist that believe guns protect the weak and the infirm and stop people preying on them, and that somehow that doesn't work both ways where it allows people that previously would be less capable of crime if it weren't for a firearm....

They are all ridiculous notions and farfetched hypothetical situations dreamt up by the gun nuts. None of the pro gun arguments seem grounded in reality of this day and age or remotely realistic or credible.

All that I want to see the USA do is take further steps to properly recognise the major problem of its gun culture and take genuine, serious steps to begin combatting it.

It takes someone gutsy to try and make the changes to laws or standards that have seemingly been set in stone for centuries in the face of powerful opposition, but the change would be for the better.

Martin Luther King himself would tell you that if you don't try and fight with all your might for what you know is right, then change for the better will never come.

Unfortunately he can't tell you that right now, because he was killed by an assassin wielding a firearm....