[jacques_chester]

Guns greatly amplify the power to act out a killing urge. That is, after all, their purpose.

I am, by most measures, a strong man.

But given a rock or a knife, I would not, within 2 minutes, be able to kill 20 people and injure 12 in a crowded cafe in Port Arthur, before going on to kill another 12 people and injuring 3 within the following hour.

Neither could I, with a rock or a knife, visit Utøya and kill 69 people and wound 110 within one hour.

These acts are physically beyond me. I suspect they are physically beyond anybody.

The only other way for me to kill so many people would be to use high explosives. And guess what? High explosives are regulated out the fricking wazoo.

[Turing_Machine]

"The only other way for me to kill so many people would be to use high explosives."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_Fire

Nonsense.

[jacques_chester]

Yes, I could also poison the food supply, start a plague or crack an ammonium tanker truck near a school.

But the statistics show that people seem to find that using devices ergonomically designed for maximum killing efficiency much more attractive when they decide to entertain their particular psychopathology.

[Turing_Machine]

"But the statistics show that people seem to find...."

Nice weaseling.

You were wrong.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Actually, the statistics show that governments with too much power have killed orders of magnitudes more people than have ever been killed by individuals with guns.

[jacques_chester]

> You were wrong.

Australia has had zero (0) gun massacres since Port Arthur. The major leading cause of gun deaths in Australia is suicide, around 300 per year from among the ~750k gun owners in this country.

I agree that totalitarian governments have been the leading cause of death in the 20th century. But it's an orthogonal point. Look around: guns do not prevent tyranny. Neither do high explosives. What counts is institutions. The United States inherited a set of institutions (cultural norms, the rule of law) from the British that went a long way to assuring economic success and a culture of freedom.

So did Australia. Our freedom has never been guaranteed by the kind of constitutional mechanisms the USA has; it has always been reliant on culture and history. The freedom of the people of the United Kingdom is not guaranteed by any written constitution; it is reliant on culture and history. And so on and so forth. Widespread gun ownership does not banish shitty governments (ask a Saudi).

We are not going to agree, and nothing I say will change your mind. Please feel free to leave another triumphal remark below this one and let's both get on with our lives.

[Turing_Machine]

"Australia has had zero (0) gun massacres since Port Arthur."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childers_Palace_Fire

Your point?