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Yes and no. There have been mass school shootings in every decade in the USA since 1765. So if we are not going to have this discussion when emotionally involved, when will we have it? That is the argument of the NRA.

Yet we have all sorts of political discussion during politically charged events. Watergate. Katrina. 9/11.

So if not now, when? When will we have a discussion about guns? Australia, after a particularly brutal mass murder some years ago, used a federal buy back programme to remove as many guns as possible, other than for those that needed them. No mass murders there since.

So when will we have this discussion?

I hope, now?

Naomi's Shock Doctrine anyone?

I am pretty liberal on most things. But when you start getting super restrictive on weapons, you end up with weapons in the hands of criminals, with the law abiding citizen unprotected. I'm not saying that one day everyone is gonna get shot by a criminal with an AK. But gun control doesn't work. It just puts more criminals into our already over-inflated prisons. I think that the regulations we have now should suffice. Maybe a longer wait period. I live in Colorado. This is an open carry state, which means that if I wanted to carry 2 six shooters on my hip like the old west and walk around, I could. To buy a rifle or shotgun it takes 15 mins. They run a background check to make sure you aren't a felon. That's it. 

I read this article in the scientific American. It's pretty long but it explains a lot.


I'd like to ask where your proof of that is. Australia banned semi-automatic and Automatic weapons decades ago and today you don't see criminals shooting innocent people with AK47's. If a gun is used in a crime its more likely to be used on another criminal than a member of the general public.

Guns are used, if rarely, in street crime but it will typically be a pistol. More likely it will be a knife and I know I'd rather take my chances against a knife than a pistol let alone a assault rifle.

Yes nut-jobs like Anders Brevik still had access to these sort of weapons in a highly regulated gun control society but laws like the US has makes getting them ridiculously easy and such acts as his are exceedingly rare which cannot be said about the US.


I'd like to see proof that criminals mostly kill other criminals. Read my link please.

I read the link and I don't see anything that disputes my assertion.

I am talking about the reality in my country Australia. Street crime is rarely accomplished with a gun. see

That study shows gun crime statistics from 1995-2005, a period that includes the 1997 gun buy back where semi-automatic and pump action style rifle where banned and bought back by the government.

It shows that while guns where involved in 20.3% of all murders and 46% of all attempted murders it was only involved in 5.9% of robberies and 0.3% of assaults.

At the same time knives where involved in 36.7% of murders, 26% or attempted murders but 21.5% of robberies, or about 15% less than guns.

In another study ( explores the use of handguns in crime. I'd like to quote the following;

Domestic altercations also contributed to a sizeable proportion of handgun homicides (almost one-quarter) but much less so than for frearm and other homicides, where it was the most important identified motive."

My point is that in a society than is not heavily armed a criminal does not expect to need to use a gun and therefore does not carry one. The exception for this is where he or she expects the other party to be armed.. as in other criminals.

As such effective gun control, at least in the Australian experience, means you are unlikely to be the victim of a gun crime. Domestic violence still does happen with a gun, but since the majority of the population is not armed it is thankfully still very rare.

Finally I'd like to add one more link. This time from the comedy website who i think actually put forward some of the best arguments for gun control i have seen for a while. Please read



Dr. Clark is correct.  As Michael Moore has eloquently put it (and I've differed with him over the years, but there's no faulting his sincerity and love of country), "Guns don't kill people -- Americans kill people."  The US accounts for 80% of all gun deaths in the 30 richest countries (combined!).  Other countries have moved past their violent history, he notes -- why can't we?   

And (still paraphrasing Moore), what the hell are we so afraid of?  Why do gun sales spike after a shooting?  More broadly, why send 100,000 troops into Afghanistan (home to a just couple hundred al Qaeda fanatics) or launch a trumped up war against Saddam Hussein, who had no WMDs and nothing to do with 9/11?

Is America the land of the brave?  Apparently not.

We could argue this ad infinitum.  No, people don't "need" automatic weapons (or plutonium, for that matter).  But banning them is like closing the barn door after the horse is already in the next county.  I also note in passing that the drug war has vastly multiplied the number of illegal firearms in the US.  Guns are legal, but marijuana isn't.  It's bizarre.

Also worth noting: if someone is bent on mass murder, he'll find a way to do it.  The largest body count was achieved not with firearms but with fire itself: an angry guy splashed a nightclub doorway with gasoline; dozens died.  Who "needs" to be walking around with a gallon of gasoline?  The Aurora shooter could have achieved much the same goal by setting a fire in the theater.  The tragedy might have been even worse.

I also agree with Tammy.  She suggests some important and meaningful changes.  There is such a thing as responsible (no quote-marks) gun ownership.

Is America the land of the brave?  Apparently not

Interesting line.  

Guns are legal, but marijuana isn't.  It's bizarre.

Also interesting juxtaposition.    I can just picture what would happen at a marijuana-filled gun-cleaning party.


This post is full of great comments.  Well, there's fertilizer bombs (Oklahoma/Morrow).  There's the Unibomber.  There's anthrax.  I'm scaring myself.

Clint Eastwood and the Canadian sense of humor on the Difference between Canada and U.S gun attitudes

with handguns.

Another difference is that a gun rack in an American pick-up truck has guns in it, in Canada they have curling brooms.

I'm not sure the lack of gun control caused the incident in Aurora, CO. I'm not sure gun control would necessarily fix it either. Proponents have a point that if any of them had a gun, the gunman would not have been so bold. However, the theater is private property and likely would not allow guns anyway. What it comes down to in that instance was a lack of security: a parking lot camera or security guard could have put the gunman on alert when he opened the fire exit door. There's a way to prevent things like this without invoking the ominous words "gun control" every time something happens. Just like I'm sure someone must be hollering for increasing drug war funds after the bath salt incident. Nothing comes out of being reactionary.


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