[bambax]

1- While I'm certainly no expert in guns and «gun culture» (something I would take little pride in), I don't know nothing about guns. I can take apart a 1911 .45, in the dark, and put it back together (the top part with the barrel); my father in law use to own guns and took me shooting several times with his Magnum 357; my point is that I have used guns before (didn't enjoy it much though)

2- Much more importantly, the whole «expertise» debate and argument is very illegitimate. This is the same argument finance people use to claim they should not be regulated: «you don't understand! it's complicated!» It may be complicated but we're still the ones called to clean up your mess. That entitles us to have an opinion. My opinion is that guns actually kill people.

After a particularly gruesome mass shooting in the 90s, Australia passed vey tough gun control laws, with a buyback program. No further mass shooting happened since, and criminality didn't increase. Food for thought.

[clarky07]

Let's replay this for a minute: You: get rid of automatic weapons Me: he didn't use an automatic weapon You: doesn't matter get rid of semi-automatic weapons then Me: He could do it with a revolver or bolt action gun just as easily You: No he couldn't Me: Yes he could, with proof You: Something about experts, it's complicated, let's get rid of all guns...

>It may be complicated but we're still the ones called to clean up your mess. That entitles us to have an opinion. My opinion is that guns actually kill people.

Sure, guns kill people. So do knives, and bombs, and trucks, and and and and... These things also have lots of legitimate uses.

top 10 school killings before last week - http://listverse.com/2008/01/01/top-10-worst-school-massacre...

Note that only 3 of these were in the US.

We have, a flamethrower, a lance, a mace, bolt action rifle, revolvers, knives, machettes, bombs, and cars in addition to the semi-auto guns that you think we should get rid of. This is a problem has been around for a long time, and it is something that has been done with lots and lots of different things. People kill people. This has been true since the beginning of time. If you actually have a solution to this problem let me know. Saying we should take away the guns and everyone will be fine is absurd.

Getting rid of the guns might make you feel better, but it doesn't solve anything. It does however take away my liberty, my freedom, and my rights.

[bambax]

> Let's replay this for a minute

I'm sorry but this replay is incorrect. I said from the start "all guns are bad". I don't think you should get rid of only "automatic" or only "semi-automatic" or only "rifles" or what have you. I think you (you being the US) should ban every single gun, no matter its mode of operation, where it's made, etc. Ban, buy-back, destroy.

I used "automatic" for emphasis in my first comment (a bad idea, I see this now ;-) and the pro-gun cohort jumped on this word to try to disqualify me and any further comment I could make: "he couldn't shoot himself out of a paper bag, don't listen to this guy".

If this is what you truly think, fine, but don't make me say I advocate (or advocated at any point in this discussion) the ban of specific guns. I advocate the ban of ALL guns, and even more importantly, I think you will not see the end of this until you change, or more to the point eradicate the whole "gun culture" and "shooting is fun" and "guns are cool" memes.

The only purpose of guns is to kill people (not "shoot pumpkins" -- but thanks for the invite). They are useful to people whose job it is to kill people (namely, the army; the police, I'm not so sure). Every other citizen should not have guns (ANY gun).

This is the policy implemented successfully in the UK and Australia, two English-speaking countries and the closest allies of the US (surely you can relate to the country of Churchill?)

See

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_afte...

and

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2012/12/gun-control

But unfortunately I also think this sane policy will not happen, as does The Economist.

That's a shame but in the end it's your problem, not mine. Just make sure your gun cabinet is locked, and that one of your distant nephews who's been on Prozac for years without you noticing, doesn't get hold of the key.

[clarky07]

2 things.

1. Australia isn't a reasonable comparison.

"At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia."

600k was 20% of all of their guns. 600k would be .2% of the legally owned guns in America.

2. England has a violent crime rate that is over 4 times higher than the US. Just because shootings drops, doesn't mean crime or murder drops. That has been my major point throughout all of this. Yes, banning guns lowers gun crime. No kidding. It doesn't however make you safer. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-...

[clarky07]

Also, regarding the «expertise» comment. I'm not saying you can't have an opinion, I'm just suggesting you can't fix the problem without more knowledge about the subject matter. You can say you want Wall Street regulated, but unless you have a huge amount of knowledge about the industry you have no idea what that entails or how to even go about it. Tell me, where would start and how exactly would that fix the problem?

It's the same with guns. You can say in few enough characters to fit in a tweet "get rid of automatic and semi-automatic guns", but it takes a deeper knowledge of the subject matter to know that that doesn't actually fix anything.

There are a lot more moving parts here. Just a few:

1.The WORST school massacre in US history did not use a gun. He used 3 bombs.

2. Mental health and it's treatments in the US. Many of the recent school shootings have been by people who were being medicated for mental health issues. Are these treatments helping? Are they actually hurting? Should we be doing more? Should some of them have been locked up?

3. School security. At this point, schools are target simply because of the other shootings. Different schools have different levels of security ranging from 0 to huge amounts. A few armed security officials sprinkled throughout schools could probably limit the damage somebody could do better than getting rid of semi-auto rifles.