[grecy]

> Why wouldn't he just grab a knife from his kitchen? Or run them down with his car? Or a bat? Or set their house on fire?

How many people would he kill compared to a high-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with 1000+ rounds of ammo?

> It's just a tool.

A tool that enables the holder to seriously injure or kill many more people than other readily available tools.

[cobrausn]

Stop saying '1000+ rounds of ammo', as it makes you sound like the alarmist you are.

Point of fact - a loaded magazine for an AR-15 weighs in at approximately one pound. To carry '1000+ rounds of ammo', you would need to carry something like 30 magazines. Try it sometime - that only happens in video games for a reason.

A large truck driven through a crowded market could kill many more people than your average looney with a semi-automatic rifle. These highly publicized events make up only a tiny fraction of the number of homicides we experience per year, most of which only use a few bullets, and not from a 'high-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle'. Calm down.

[Symmetry]

In this particular example he had a finite list of people he wanted to kill in either case, so if moderately athletic guy who's for-armed himself with a baseball bat and knife I'd expect him to be able to murder a person or small number of people with or without a gun.

As to someone who's really crazy and wants to kill as many people as possible, well, people who use bombs seem be much more deadly than people who use guns, so I'd be nervous about banning guns for fear of channeling them into less visceral but more deadly sorts of mayhem.