How can we regulate guns ... ?

Given where you are, to make any difference at all, you'd have to get properly harsh.An outright ban on the ownership of handguns and assault weapons. A recall of existing guns in those categories and strong Federal - not state - licensing of hunting rifles and shotguns.And don't dick about splitting hairs with definitions.Good luck with all that.

Knives are obviously not quite as efficient as assault rifles - Sean Connery's line 'only an idiot brings a knife to a gun fight' is fairly instructive - but I Googled 'knife massacre' anyway and found this: Then there's cars.A lot can be said about the relative efficiency of committing murder with cars versus guns, but unlike guns, cars are made for other purposes than killing.They have massive benefits for society and all societies have accepted the downside that they cause injury and death also. The compromise is that we highly regulate cars with speed control, licencing, proficiency testing, safety equipment and so on.But really, it's totally spurious to say that because cars and knives cause death, we should not try to do something about guns causing death.This is just the false choice fallacy; the task is to reduce risk, not to cure all societies problems at once or do nothing at all. They are, but they are an increasingly frequent anomoly and they're having a disproportionatly chilling effect on your society as a whole.

If you'd care to take a small - fuck it - large, wager on that, I'll prove otherwise. Please place you bet with Percy. (Before you do anything really stupid, know that I shot 202 rifle for my university.) Really? No speed restriction on US freeways? i feel another bet coming on. No age restrictions? No driving tests? No air bags, no, well you probably get the argument by now. I feel yet another HUGE bet coming on. Hmmm, but cars and knives somehow do........

Most people outside the US find it odd that it needs proving that more guns would lead to more gun deaths. Even odder, that whilst demading proof before restricting access to guns, the NRA simultaneously prevents research to find the evidence.Anyway, have a look at this: http://election.princeton.edu/...entific-americans-gun-error

Are you trying to make the point that because there are a number of weapons that have been called assault rifles that effective regulation can't be drafted?Well that's just nonsense, the legislators are used to dealing with ambiguity and are perfectly capable of writing laws that work - if they're not hamstrung by those that don't want it to work that is.If you need a leg-up start here:http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/5/contents/enacted

I see, and how do you hope to do that? And what do you hope to achieve by it?Are you're hoping you can sideline the material debate into a pointless definitional squabble? If so, you're wasting your time but not mine - sorry.

I suspect the 'feel-good' liberal types in your country would also like the problems related to gang murders tackled too. I know we feel-good types in the UK did.But it seems to me - correct me if I'm wrong - that the feel-bad types are also the right-wing types and they aren't interested in doing anything that might begin to get to grips witih the inequalities in society that may get to root causes - poverty, housing, education, health, drugs etc.So, in the meantime, the feel-good types have an opportunity to at least make a start on fiixing some of the problem - which is gun ownership, whether you like it or not.

Of course and legislators spend their lives doing just that. But silly arguments about what is and what is not an assault rifle is merely a distraction strategy. The laws can be formed on rate of fire, magazine size and so on, as they have been here and elsewhere.It's not rocket science. There'll be issues, because there always are - it doesn't stop the laws being made and being effective.What does stop laws not working is compromised legislation forced by vested interests.

This is what I have said: I have also offered as a starting point the UK Firearms Act (amended) which provides definitions of what is allowed and what isn't.http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/5/contentsGiven that I've never attempted a definition myself because that just leads to deliberately distracting and futile arguments like this one; it's rather hard to be wrong about it.

I know you're desperate to distract the conversation off into the undergrowth of magazine size, barrel length and calibre, but I ain't going there; it's obviously possible to define the kinds of weapons that you wish to ban as it has been done successfully in other countries.

Oh dear, an article from the Sun.I'm more than happy to add .22 repeating rabbit guns to the list. Next?

Yes, but that's the point of the legislation, it can be amended whenever necessary - and has been. [The obvious fact that perfection is not achievable is not a reason to do nothing.]

If you read the link to the Act you can see exactly how the last (1997) Act was amended. There have also been numerous firearm Acts over the years. As with all laws, Governments produce and update them when they think there is a need. Correct, the reason to do it is independent of the fact that it can be updated once done. Have a look at the version of your Operating System, does it say v1.0?I'm sure one day we'll invent phasers and probably have to add a paragraph or two.

It seems to me, reading this post and a series of others that you've had with Percy lately and me earlier, that the heart of everyone's impatience with you and your subsequent feelings of paranoia, is your refusal to back down and stop arguing when you're obviously in the wrong.Now you're going to say that you're not in the wrong here - of course - you think that you're being completely reasonable asking for increasing levels of definitions but to the rest of us, the position is absurd because it's simply a truism that guns are more efficient at killing than knives (or fists.)This is not something that needs a scientific definition, nor continuous discussion. It's something we should all be able to nod in agreement on as entirely self evident and pass on to the main issue. To find ourselves arguing, at length over pedantry is extremely frustrating.And you do it on every damn subject, once you have a position you are impervious to evidence against it and feel that you must argue impossible positions regardless of the damage it does you.Don't you see that if you're not prepared to accept the self-evident fact that guns are efficient ways of killing a lot of people quickly without moving into equivocation and prove it mode, there just isn't going to be a way of having a rational discussion at all?Look it must be possible to have a reasoned discussion with you, you're an intelligent guy, I just think you're actually in the 'stand your ground' mode at all times and shooting from the hip spraying points everywhere. If you took a bit more time to consider answers and produce more data, less posts and less words, you'd make more progress.Just a thought. We could all be wrong about you, but doesn't it seem unlikely?

Hi Crash - you were responding to me so I feel partly to blame. If you can put all this nonsense aside, i'd like you back and scrapping.Oh fuck, too late.....Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.