Guns

Agreed - indeed, laws that infringe upon the rights of the people to keep and bear gatling guns could be seen as unconstitutional. Though I'm sure there is some sort of balancing test to determine that. You don't mean at VT, I assume. Those students were not allowed to carry weapons - they did not have easy access to guns. No, they meant for everyone to have the right to keep and bear arms, not for some people to have the right, but others not to have the right. And naturally they didn't anticipate the population densities we have now, nor the culture in general. Nor could the anticipate the advances in firearm technology.The second ammendment needs ammending methinks. As a Brit, let me warn others of the dangers of sticking to constitution over common sense.

I never said the shooter did not have easy access to weapons. I mentioned that there was a ban on gun posession on campus. A prevalence of easily obtainable guns in an area surrounding a place with less easily obtainable guns strikes me as warm breeding grounds for suicide by massacre.

An old woman once grabbed hold of my arse and I had a stack of pint glasses in my hand. It was unwanted sexual fondling. Should I have smashed the glasses in her face?

If the UN allowed all nations to develop or buy nuclear weapons, and then Iran blew Israel up. We would obviously blame Iran for being crazy, but we could also say that this situation would have been much less likely to happen if all nations did not have the right to buy or develop nukes.Sure Iran could still invade Israel with ground troops, but that is a harder battle. They could try and destroy Israel with swords or baseball bats or shoes. The nuke really helps though, which is why we are so keen to prevent nations that don't have them from getting them while at the same time understanding the power of the deterrent. Without nukes, nobody would be nuked. We don't forget that war existed long before. Right, and crazy world leaders will try and secretely develop nukes, succesfully sometimes. Just because some nations are able to break the law, that doesn't mean we should overturn the law! Nobody really blames a lump of metal. People blame its prevalence and ease of access combined with the rich-poor divide, population density, cultural attitudes, social structure in general etc etc. Here's the thing. I have no idea how to buy a gun. I've never seen a handgun outside of law enforcement in the UK (I've seen a couple of shotguns, but I know some farmers and poachers so...), and that is not a result of a sheltered life.Sure I know a couple of names of criminal families, but I don't know how to go about getting hold of a gun without getting noticed by the wrong kind of people (or law enforcement).So, my ability is to get a rifle or a shotgun at the very best if I was very very motivated to get a gun. Those are not weapons sprees are generally made of.Would it be sane to sell hand grenades to people, would we question the prevalence of high explosives if a nutter used them in a shopping mall?The question is obviously one of drawing a line. If you still do not understand the argument, its time to do some more listening. I have a friend who is very much pro-gun. I understand his reasoning, but disagree with where he thinks the line should be drawn. Nobody suggests making something illegal will stop crimes. It will reduce some crimes, it might increase other crimes. The debate is whether banning certain or all guns will save more lives than having them legal will. Given the complex nature of socialogical studies, it is rarely a simple answer and anyone who thinks it is as simple as 'banning guns will make crime victims defenseless therefore we shouldn't' is missing a very big point.As a side note, I was once shot at in the US by somebody whose name and address were known to me (the police didn't bother to follow it up though since nobody was hurt and they had plenty of serious gun crime to keep them busy). I was later introduced to a home defense revolver which I thought was sensible. In a place like the US, I can understand why someone might want a gun for protection - but some guns are clearly overkill. You only need a few rounds of ammunition to serve as a deterrent against almost all crimes you are likely to want to defend yourself against. The ammunition does not have to be designed to be deadly either. As long as a gun provided adequate threat of death or serious injury its deterrent and defensive purposes will be fulfilled.

What? I said there are legal barriers against owning nuclear weapons. If those barriers were lifted, so Iran was allowed to get nukes without interference and then use them. In this case part of the responsibility for this falls on those that lifted the legal barriers. Obviously. I think you might have misundertood me there. Yes we are enforcing that law. And a good job too. It is off topic because I never mentioned enforcing the law. I was talking about overturning the law. That is to say: get rid of the nuke ban. Not right. Some citizens can own a gun. Not all of them. I know lots of 'bad guys', and none of them even know how to get hold of a gun, and many wouldn't even want to (if you get caught with it, you're screwed).Some bad guys do get them anyway, obviously. Most law enforcement officers don't don't carry firearms because not many bad guys have guns. Also mostly good guys who do stupid impulsive acts of violence don't have guns, so there is little to fear when pulling someone over. There are specialist armed units for when firearms posession is suspected. But less of them. A balance should be applied. The costs of all those times you need to use a legally owned gun appropriately but don't have it versus all of those times legally owned guns are used inappropriately.In the UK, we have balanced it towards heavy ownership restrictions. In the US, much less ownership restrictions.Where is the right balance? Depends on the country and even the state.The question is, has the US got the right balance? Is having free access to weapons in one zone, and possession bans in another zone, a recipe for disaster? Do citizens need gatling guns to defend themselves against the average burglar? etc etc. And after we go for Hollywood, we should turn to video games, and then perhaps books. Burn those violence glorifying books! Then theatre - get that violence filled Macbeth of our stages! And art too!Art reflects humanity, and maybe there is some feedback - but the price to pay if we start censoring art? Cultural and financial disaster.

Why have a licence? A friend of mine had a father who had a big old handgun. Completely genuine. We used to play with it as teenagers. The firing pin had been removed, a ball-bearing was welded into the barrel and the trigger had been removed.Nobody got killed with that collector's item.