*sigh*
Open the mind, grasshopper. Am I gonna have to write yet another manifesto?
Paul, those same long arms that the yanks buy in Walmart were availible 10 years ago at Canadian Tire.
Bish, a machete can be bought at those same Canadian Tire shops for $8. Gonna outlaw them too? How about your bow? Is there any use for that outside of killing? I didn't think so. Yet you still own it, doncha? Wanna tell us all why?
BTW, make all the laws you want. They're not gonna stop anyone owning a gun. The punk who put a 12 guage to my head wasn't worried about a cop seeing him. The guy with a .32 snub nose in the glove box isn't either. Nor the guy with a gunsafe full of semi-auto rifles, reconverted Uzis, and pump action shotguns. Stop selling guns? Any competent machine shop can turn out at least a working gun every other day. Any kid taking metal shop in highschool has toyed with the idea of making a zipgun. All the stuff to make your own bullets is availible mailorder. Purchased guns are much safer, but what the hell.
Now, instead of carpping on, and on, and on, about getting rid of guns (which'll never happen) why not talk common sense and talk
education? Hey, here's an idea. Teach gun safety in the schools.
<pc whiner> Oh My God!! You can't mean let children play with guns!!!
No, I don't mean let kids play with guns. I mean, educate them about guns. That they're not toys. That they're dangerous. That they kill. At least, in grade one. Later on, take them out, and teach them to shoot. Teach them control. More importantly, take the mystique off guns. Kill the ego trip.
Let's look for a minute at who uses a gun to kill, shall we?
1) Intent murderers. These guys are gonna kill anyways. If they don't get guns, they'll use cars, knives, swords, machetes, axes, stairs, rancid meat, rat poison, electricity, water, gasoline, peanuts, garden tools, ... you get the message. Gun restrictions aren't gonna affect this guy at all.
2) Crime of passion. Well, this guy wasn't planning on kiling anyone, so he didn't make any special preparations. If there's a gun close at hand, he'll use it. A knife, an ashtray, a lamp, .. Again, not having a gun at hand isn't gonna bother this guy too much.
3) Thieves, muggers, rapists. Basically, all the criminals who aren't specifically there to off their victim. They bring the gun along for moral support. They just wanna scare the victim into giving in without a fight. Usually, if these guys have a gun, it's because they stole it. Restricting sales and registration is bypassed. And they seldom start off with a gun. They start off with a knife. A new trend is to use mace or pepper spray. So restricting guns aren't gonna slow these guys up much either. If noone has a gun, they'll have plenty of leverage using a squirt gun full of drain cleaner, or a suringe full of anything they can pass off as AIDS infected blood.
(Hmmm. A lot of criminals getting through here)
4) Accidents. Ah, here we go. Finally, somewhere where not having a gun will save someone. Of course, having a properly stored gun would also save the same person. Hmmm. Well, we obviously can't trust someone to care for their own gun, can we. But wait, if we e.d.u.c.a.t.e the kids first ... Then they'll know not to touch it, won't they? But what about preschoolers, you say? Well, I think the gun lobby would happily agree to upping the trigger pressure on guns to something in the 10 to 15 lbs range. I don't know too many kids with hands that strong, do you?
So, let's look back, shall we?
Instead of whining about something that'll never change, we need to look for ways to make guns less dangerous. Perhaps restrict calliber sizes. A .22 is much more survivable than a .50 out of a Desert Eagle. Making gun ownership mandatory, as one US town did ensures that everyone gets a gun education. No one's impressed by guns. Noone's scared of them. Gun's, at that point, are reduced from a phobic monster, to a tool. No more mystic, or dangerous than a drywall saw.
BTW, the drywall saw in my toolbelt makes a lot bigger hole than any bullet, and is a lot less survivable.
