"Plenty of serial killers have killed more than that, one victim at a time, using just a knife or piano wire, or sometimes even their bare hands... So why are people blaming the guns here??"

Oh, please... you said it yourself -- ONE VICTIM AT A TIME. Guns - assault weapons - kill many people in a very short period of time.

I was an employee at the California Board of Equalization in Sacramento when a heavily armed man shot his way into our building and took hostages. I was lucky to be evacuated by the SWAT team, and all employees were lucky that no one other than the gunman was shot. Not a situation that I ever want to be in again.

Not everyone lives in an urbanized area with lots of police to protect them. In many rural communities it can take 2 hours for the sheriff to respond. In some overburdened high-crime cities the police often do not even bother responding to break-ins and property crimes unless it's clearly a life-threatening emergency.

I was reading about one county in Southern Oregon where an emergency arose and the sheriff had to deputize three men (gun owners) on the spot to be able to deal with it. Due to budget cuts, the county only had two active sheriffs on duty.

Every nation has people who are mentally ill, who join kooky cults like IS, who are recluses and misfits with an imagined beef. All cities have gangs and criminals, ETC.

Let us compare two cities that are not located far from one another and that have similar populations: Toronto and Chicago. Canada has strict gun control. The US does not. Toronto's gunshot death totals are in double digits. Chicago's top 500 by mid-summer. We don't know how many gunshot wounds there are because the NRA-sellouts in Congress don't want them counted.

There are 'mass killings' of four or more almost every day in the US. There are many more single deaths daily. There are thousands of people wounded by guns daily.

A gun is made to kill. A child can use one. It's so easy that a person can kill or maim in a second, on impulse, long before the rational brain kicks in. The shooter is often another victim of easy access to guns. The person who could have only injured another with his fists or a knife becomes a murderer -- of one or many -- in an instant of fear or anger. (Think domestic situations. Think Road Rage.) Only the police are trained NOT to shoot on impulse. As we know, even they fail to control themselves sometimes.

In the old days society never made any attempt to "keep guns away from the bad guys". If you committed a crime, you served time in prison, if you killed somebody you got the death penalty, and that was that. No one had to bother having to secure all their guns to make sure they didn't fall into the hands of a bad guy. Now everyone is expected to have to have a giant safe in their home.

You talk about the "mentally ill". Even if you had such a law in place, all of these murder spree perpetrators would still have qualified to purchase a gun. And you can be sure if such a law does ever get passed, there will be a lot of people who will get labeled "mentally ill" for all sorts of dubious and ridiculous reasons and have their gun rights unfairly taken away from them. We can already observe this type of phenomena happening with the sex-offender registry, where a 19 year old guy who had sex with his 16 year old girlfriend becomes legally unable to live anywhere in his city because all the available housing is located too close to public schools and this lasts for the rest of his life. In other cases many innocent defendants are coerced by the justice system into pleading guilty to felonies because they do not want to risk 20 years behind bars, so they serve 1 year of prison (which they would spend anyway awaiting trial if they can't afford bail) and lose the right to own guns for the rest of their lives. All sorts of stupid laws are considered felonies today. Did you ever hear about the story of that man who unintentionally committed a felony because he bought an orchid plant (which itself would be perfectly legal) but the foreign company that sold it to him filled out the import paperwork incorrectly? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqoO_-g_RAU Another man named Adam Kokesh who was a Libertarian political activist living in Washington D.C. lost the right to buy guns for the rest of his life when police planted a tiny bag containing psychedelic mushrooms in his home (D.C. law makes it a separate felony to possess drugs while in possession of a gun, even though the gun Adam Kokesh owned was otherwise completely legal). The prosecutor incentivized him to plead guilty, and he never ended up being sentenced to any jail time at all. The point is that the system often forces defendants to permanently trade in their rights for their freedom from having to spend years behind bars.

Funny that Chicago was mentioned as an example of gun violence considering the draconian guns laws enacted there. This debate has to be a cultural split. Where I live guns are common, really common and the circles I run in are filled with folks who hunt and sport shoot. Never have I felt the slightest concern when I am standing a crowd of over a hundred armed people. I have no fear attending gun shows or going to ranges.

People that want to kill will kill. Millions were killed in western Africa with simple knives just in the last 50 years alone. Removing guns from the equation changes human nature not the slightest bit. Consider that more American military have been killed by home made bombs than direct fire and then try decide how to make those bomb components illegal...

Edited for limited editing

Chisue- have you ever fired a gun? Have you ever taken a gun safety course? Have you ever taken a class to get a CCL?

Police are not the only ones trained to NOT shoot on impulse. Millions of responsible gun owners know what they are doing and we do not pull our weapons out willy nilly waving them around or pointing them at people like idiots.

These people were not "mentally ill", they were connected to ISIS....they knew exactly what they were doing!....as per the FBI reports today.

Why is it ok for kids to watch movies in which someone's head or arm gets chopped off and blood spurts everywhere, but no one, not even adults, can be shown a lifeless body of a terrorist in the street?

*****

Gee, One is real and one is fake?

The male terrorist in CA was shown face down in the street, cuffed, and dead.

I had no problem with that.

Nice that some people take training about gun safely, but...anybody with the price of one can buy a gun and not be held responsible for what becomes of it.

Other nations do not have these grim stats. We do. The difference is guns.

There's a tremendous amount of gun violence in the slums of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, yet the gun laws in Brazil are much stricter than the U.S. I think demographics and socioeconomic factors play a bigger role than legal availability. Switzerland, of course, was one example where there were guns (and often times grenades too) in every house yet the crime was extremely low. This has been changing in the last 30 years as the country has taken in migrants from other parts of the world (particularly Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa). Several of the Swiss cantons have started implementing strict gun control laws, and there is an acute sense of anxiety, with most of the banks having now installed bulletproof windows between employees and customers. The difference is demographics, not guns.

Mimipadv - yes, I know that "one is real and one is fake," but the fake is made to look real. Interesting that you seem to like those.

It's amazing what type of freedoms people can have and how easy things are when the crime rate is virtually zero. There's one island in Denmark (Ærø) where the local economy operates on the honor system, to a large extent. When you rent a bike, there's no deposit, they just trust you to bring it back. There are fresh produce stands along the roads with money boxes. The farmers do not have to sit around all day to sell what they grow. The island only needs two police officers, despite a population of over six thousand; there are ten times as many Lutheran ministers as there are those in law enforcement. The last case of murder (a man killing his wife in a fit of anger), the man went down to the police office in the morning and turned himself in.

In America many decades ago there were many rural communities where no one ever bothered to lock their doors. Those times are long gone, it seems. I remember hearing one man tell a story about how he was driving across the country on a road trip and had stopped in a small Mormon town in Utah. He absent-mindedly left his wallet on the top of his car and drove off. When he realized what he'd done he thought he was sure he'd never see his wallet again, but the next day a Mormon man knocked on the door to his motel room to return his wallet. All his money was still in there, over 600 dollars. The man offered to give the Mormon man half the money in his wallet as a reward for his honesty, but he refused. "I wouldn't want to give up any of my reward in heaven", the other man said.

Gotta completely disagree with you, Parker. Things are so far out of control that even with stricter laws, it will take time to see lower stats.

Yep. Too political to be discussed calmly.

I'll ask what I just asked on the Hot Topics Tube thread (people were stabbed in a terrorist act). If guns aren't the problem, as they obviously weren't in that case...

what is the true problem at heart here? Why is current day humanity, around the world, killing, maiming, harming, etc. to further goals happening, and how do you address the TRUE problem?

Gee that sounds like a great place to live:

"People 'new' to the community were accepted but not welcomed. And the newcomers were likely one family, not 20. They came and stayed. Eventually they were accepted much as you accept the chair with the wobbly leg. They were who they were. No more, no less."

I noticed that when I first moved here 40+ years ago. I'm glad times are changing. I'm glad my new neighbors fully accepted me and I them in my neighborhood. They have introduced themselves, shook my hand and told me about themselves. I have reciprocated. We're not family! Whew. Guess I am glad to live where I do and not someplace like that.

This is not a "new" problem. Cultures have been clashing since the beginning of time. When the clash is violent the solution is the same as it has always been, you crush the competing culture by either converting or destroying it. That is the plain truth, it is just ugly, unappealing and unpopular.

Humanity is a mixed bunch *everywhere*, yet among First World nations, only America is awash in guns. How can anyone deny the relationship between guns and deaths by guns? America has daily gun death totals that rival the world's 'hot spots' -- none of which are First World countries.

If the Ten Commandments were all we needed, we wouldn't need other laws to protect our society. We are not in a war against one another. This is not a weak nation! Stop the fear. Stop overreacting to some conjured fear with guns.

"A generation ago almost everyone living in a given area were related to each other."

This isn't true. The Normal Rockwell existence you describe is life in a small town, and maybe a small and homogenous Midwestern town at that, which many find limiting and suffocating and so they leave. In your Iowa and other places, small towns have been losing their populations for decades on end. People vote with their feet, so whatever it is for better or for worse, the attraction isn't great enough to get people to stay.

Everyone comes from a different place, it's not that that matters. We live in a multicultural society today, that's a strength we need to take better advantage of.

I agree with chisue. No need to repeat earlier comments.

chisue, what is this "first world", "first world" mantra all about in comparing gun violence in America to other countries? Don't you mean "compared with small European countries with a very homogenous population", or were you more broadly including S Korea and Japan - even more homogenous than western Europe. It seems like you think America and western Europe are somehow mirrors of each other with the exception of gun ownership. That assumption shows a striking ignorance of the reality. Similiar to thinking that making every gun illegal would have stopped a commited person from violence.

Also, which "conjured fear" are we overreacting to? I dont remember being one of the people blaming the non-thinking inanimate guns for killing those poor people.

Conjured fear refers to the emotion certain people with an audience use to sway said audience towards their way of thinking in order to achieve a particular end, without any proof to back the "facts" up. This kind of propaganda has been used very successfully in this country for a couple of decades now.

Knives can kill one at a time. Guns can kill hundreds at a time. Turning the conversation to what the 'core' problem of our society may be pleases the nra and their ilk, because they do not have to deal with answering to the problem of a huge country awash in guns and fear. It's sickening.

America isn't especially diverse, our fractionalization index is right in the middle of the pack, several European countries and Canada are more diverse than we are.

I deleted my earlier post just because I didn't want to get dragged too deep into this. But I will repost a part of it. Enforced gun bans are effective because they make guns expensive, while many people think they exist to get rid of guns, they don't. No one in England or any other country thinks they can really get rid of guns, but they can make the risk high enough so that guns are a lot more expensive.

Given the responsibility that should come with gun ownership, guns are largely unlicensed, and unregulated. I don't want to blame guns, nor do I want to ban guns, but do they have to be so cheap? Shouldn't a gun cost more than a college textbook? It is hard to create false economic floors without banning guns, but it can be done.

Not diverse? Spend some time in California or any of the southern border or east coast urban areas. These are both the major population centers and the diversity centers.

I'm as able as any to try to translate your pseudo-intellectual comments and, frankly, when I do I don't find much in them. To each his/her own.

Couple more comments :)...

Show me the European country that is more diverse than the US and LOL at Canadian diversity.

Making guns more expensive would only ensure that the rich and criminals would have guns. As an example of that the tricked out ARs used in Cali probably run upwards of $2500 each not to include ammo- not cheap. I also know a rented truck could be converted into one heck of a fertilizer bomb for that money.

The "core problems" are what need to be addressed, weather related to terrorism, violent crime or whatever. Otherwise you are simply a person scared of a piece of metal. Fear the person not the tool.

You just seriously gave anecdotal evidence in a post where you accused someone of being pseudo-intellectual. I am not sure whether you don't know what the word means or you just had a slow moment as you typed your response.

Let me help you out there Snidely - this will explain it for you

I know Google is hard but give it a shot.

There are people who know things from learning and observation, don't need to do internet searches or resort to Wikipedia for the arcane, and understand that using words, terms or concepts unfamiliar to people they converse with makes a negative rather than a positive impression.

I have a close relationship with a younger person who's learning to integrate perspectives from academia with what exists in the real world. Often, when we talk, I'll react to something he says by calling him either Captain Obvious or Captain Oblivious. He understands the message when I say these things to him, would you?

understand that using words, terms or concepts unfamiliar to people they converse with makes a negative rather than a positive impression.

The reason we have so many words, is that they often have different meanings. Sometimes people use big or unfamiliar words because they are simply the right words. For example, you gave the south as an example of diversity, but diversity means more than the existence of other cultures, it means the inclusion of them. While I don't find America particularly exclusive, I don't see America as especially inclusive either. Even those "southern border" areas with their long history of minority inclusion and equality...

Edit: (tablet was dying) - One of the most often given reasons for the increased gun violence in America is the exclusion of many groups from any real political or social power, which adds to the pressure for the excluded to form new social groups with new social norms. This flies pretty strongly in the face of the idea that America is diverse. (Now the pseudo intellectual version: Reaction to disenfranchisement is often cited as being responsible for America's gun violence).

Just as a point of clarification, I am not against the idea of a gun ban and I feel we are probably heading that way. I just don't know how to enforce one in this country. We have an overwhelming distrust of the people we elect, a terrible history with bans and an even worse history with controversial bans.

Link to murder rates being higher in rural areas please or gtfo. Cause, ya know, B.S.

As long as we are now being contentious, diversity and inclusion are two different words with two very different meanings.

America has a tradition of welcoming immigrants that embrace Americanism. We should expect them to become Americans with cultural accents ;). We don't expect them to come here and act as if they are still living in their originating country.

Hurray! A little common sense has prevailed. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to stand lower court rulings that a municipality (Highland Park, Illinois) can legally ban automatic weapons (and ammunition that comprises ten rounds or more).

I hope my community and others will institute this law. No civilian NEEDS these weapons. Hunters (?) and 'gun enthusiasts' may WANT them, but nobody NEEDS these weapons, which have been instruments of innocent death in other communities.

You're going to deter a person who wants to die, in order to get immediate passage to heaven (for the guys, it's those seven or so [unrenewable] virgins ... my information bank doesn't include what incentives are used on the females) ...

... with guns??

Or bombs, for that matter - but they affect the leaders, who aren't in a mood to die.

We need to out-think them, rather than trying to out-gun them!

Part of the game of this mainly splinter movement is to bait us into going into their area to battle them ... which would rally a large number of new recruits to their cause, largely mainstream muslims who are very unwilling to support them, now..

ole joyful ... most of the time

I will withdraw my statement about rural communities, I misread the study and didn't realize that it includes suicides by firearms. While rural communities are still more dangerous they are not more homicidal.

However, you are talking about cultural diversification which does, in fact, mean acceptance or inclusion. Unless you are implying that you were just discussing variety, there is a variety of life in America - there is plant life, wildlife, human life and domesticated animal life. Or we could be talking about the variety of people in an area - fat people, skinny people, tall people, short people, males and females. Wow what variety... But we are not talking about any of those things, we are talking about cultural diversity, which by definition means acceptance and inclusion. The very opposite of the monoculturalism that you described above, which was essentially - "America welcomes everyone who thinks like we do."

From Merriam-Webster - the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : VARIETY; especially : the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization <programs intended to promote diversity in schools>

From Dictionary.com - The inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, etc.

From Wikipedia - Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, as in the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural decay. The phrase cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each other's differences.

Chisue,

I can tell by your terminology that you are not familiar with guns and their accessories. You stated... "can legally ban automatic weapons (and ammunition that comprises ten rounds or more)." The Supreme court made no ruling on automatic weapons. It was about semi-automatic weapons with some cosmetic modifications and magazines that can hold 10 or more rounds of ammunition. My Dad's 22 rimfire squirrel rifle he got in the 50's would be banned under these rules.

The Chicago Tribune reports, The Highland Park ordinance, which is based on the Cook County ordinance, prohibits the sale, purchase or possession of semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than 10 rounds in a magazine. It also bans semi-automatics equipped with a folding, telescoping or thumbhole stock; a shroud attached to the barrel; a muzzle brake or muzzle compensator; a protruding pistol grip; or a pistol grip with a stock attached. It also prohibits the sale and possession of magazines that fire more than 10 rounds.

My competition Thompson with a thumbhole stock is now an "assault" weapon. My husband's duck gun with a muzzle break (to lessen kick) would also be banned. Also, most police departments and security firms use semi-auto handguns that carry more than 10 rounds. I wonder if they will have to turn them in?

I hope Highland Park residents feel safer now. I hope the bad guys check their guns at the city's edge.

loonlake -- I *knew* I should have quoted from the article! Thank you for doing so.

Point remains, these guns are are not considered 'protection' under the Constitution.

Can you take these weapons, so obviously dear to your heart, to a club and keep them under lock and key? Wouldn't you logically want to discuss their finer points and your shooting ability with others so inclined? (Who else would be interested?)

It is my opinion that handguns are the bigger problem, but removing these weapons, known to be used in *mass destruction* is a help. Perhaps, if nuts and terrorists had difficulty obtaining these weapons NATIONWIDE, they would hesitate to feel 'empowered' and fewer innocent people would be murdered.

@ chisue - Broad and enforced gun bans can be somewhat effective at reducing a few types of shootings, we have significant evidence that gun bans can help with non terrorism mass shootings, crimes of passion shootings, and shootings during commissions of robbery.

So far as I know, there is no evidence that specific bans based on the physical description of the weapon have ever been effective. Clip size restrictions have debated effectiveness, they are a common denominator in mass shootings but that doesn't mean lowering the rounds per magazine is really going to lower the death toll. The most effective way to lower the death toll in mass shootings is active shooter training. These types of bans are designed so that representatives can say they did something.

Gun bans are generally not effective at lowering terrorism related deaths. They also have limited effect on organized crime or gang crime. In fact, they can arguably make gangs more powerful.

Another thing to note before we get too enthusiastic about gun bans is we are not sure that they are really effective at actually reducing murders. Yes, England and Australia both have much lower homicide rates than the U.S., but they always have. Using a 3 year moving average Australia saw a drop from an 1.91 average homicides per 100,000 in the ten years prior to the gun ban to 1.68 homicides in the ten years since. A healthy 12.3% drop. However, America saw a 31.75% drop over the same period. So you would have to note that our gun ban (which we don't even have) was more effective than theirs. (England's numbers went up but they changed the way they reported so I would have to really dig to be sure they actually went up).

Edit: I am not opposed to a ban, nor am I in favor of it. If we do it, we need to do it right, which I am dubious of our ability to do.

Chisue- "Mass destruction", really? Also, great that Chicago can continue being one of the super safest cities in the country with their gun control!

Enjoy the safety of Chicago. Enjoy the rapid and gentle response of your police department. I am certain your safety bubble will suffice because you believe it will. Kumbaya my friend.

I don't live in the city. I don't know anyone who lives in the "Chicago" to which you refer -- primarily the Englewood area. This is home to the competing gangs that make a living providing drugs to eager buyers far and wide. (These gangs are probably selling the heroin that ultimately gets to your neighbors, if you live anywhere near Chicago.)

Our DIL taught junior high in Englewood for several years, trying to 'make a difference' for the few kids who might find a way out of that bullet-strewn marketplace. Many guns there come from the unregulated gun shows and are provided by straw buyers who buy outside Cook County. (Some of these people are standing next to you if you frequent gun shows.) It's a perfect illustration of why National restrictions are necessary.

Lol its a perfect illustration of why you feel so comfortable with banning guns. All that gang violence is someplace else, happening to someone else.

Chisue, why blame everyone and everything but the actual individual involved in the commission of a crime? The drugs these gangs peddle are as illegal as it gets yet are still readily available. That alone should clue you in to the fact that only law abiding people follow laws. Do you have any idea as to the number of guns in circulation now? That genie is well and truely out of the bottle...

As someone mentioned above, in other countries (I live in Australia with fairly strict gun control laws), it doesn't mean guns don't exist, but you do need a good reason to get a license, so that includes law enforcement, security guards, people who belong to a sporting shooters club, even farmers who may need it to shoot sick livestock out in the boonies etc.

The average person here I doubt even thinks about guns. We don't feel the need to carry them for protection, cops can largely rely on pepper spray and tazer because the chance of someone being armed is much lower so you don't get a high level of police shootings either, whereas in the us, they may shoot out of heightened risk and fear. I think that's one of the problems the us has, law abiding citizens feel they need them because so many crims out there have them, police have to assume someone may be armed and so it keeps perpetuating.

The chances of me getting shot in my life, would probably be close to zero, so even to an outsider it seems like people in the us pay quite a high price, for the right to be armed. Some of our convenience store hold ups are almost laughable, people have used tennis raquets to threaten a clerk,,but you know what, the clerk gets to home afterwards, so yeah, people can always find other weapons, but it's much easier for crims to kill and feel brave if they have a gun.

trancegemini -- Thanks for not outright *laughing* at us. I know the rest of the world thinks we are nuts. There IS no *logic* to all these guns, unless it is that there is a sucker born every minute in the US -- to whom you can sell almost anything.

"trancegemini -- Thanks for not outright *laughing* at us. I know the rest of the world thinks we are nuts. "

oh no, I don't I think it's funny at all, I think it's quite sad that gun violence is something that any person should have to worry about. It's such a foreign concept to me because we just don't have that gun culture here. It wouldn't even occur to the vast majority of people here to ever get a gun, because it's sort of like, "what would I need a gun for?" I guess for many people in the US it is a right and just a normal part of life to have guns but when you don't live in that sort of culture, it does all seem a bit strange.

Unfortunately, if you ask people outside the US what they associate with the US, I think some of the top answers would be "guns" and "high crime" which is a shame because I'm sure the US is much more than that but it is a reputation the US has.

The thing that you have to remember when talking about America when you are in another part of the world is, in America news is a very big business. While gun deaths are often reported widely and for days in reality gun homicides in the U.S. are somewhere between 2.75 and 3.5 per 100,000 people. While I agree that even one is too many, to say that Americans worry about getting shot is really more a bi-product of the sensationalist attention that gun crimes get in the media. An incredibly significant majority of people in America will go through their entire life without ever being near a violent crime (not including a fist fight between young people) and most of those involved in a violent crime will never see a gun used in a crime.

Statistically in America, unless you are in a gang, then you are more likely to be shot by your brother, father, husband, kid, sister, wife or mother than you are by a robber. I have read the stat in a published peer reviewed academic paper that if anyone in your house buys a gun then you are 1.9 times more likely to die from a gun, which is telling.

I agree that guns are a problem in America, but for us I am not sure that banning is a real possibility. Guns are part of our culture. Imagine banning alcohol in the UK, and you can start to get a sense of the relationship, healthy or not, that many Americans have with guns. There are solutions that can really help without banning. Knowing where the guns are and licensing owners would help, an ad valorem (property) tax on guns would go a long way to removing unregistered possessions and untraceable guns. I am not talking about restricting ownership just doing the same thing we do for cars and homes. The drawback is that registering is also the first very necessary step to ban guns, which leads to resistance.

Before, I've asked to hear how people will limit guns in some way and I never hear a way that doesn't infringe on established rights. I don't get a reasonable answer. Why established rights? Supreme Court cases. If one were to read the 2nd amendment in its entirely, how can they come up with the right to own a gun and carry it around? And yet, they've decided it's reasonable.For decades.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed.

__________________

Meme going around. Good point!

If a madman wants to kill innocent people he will find a way.

Killers don’t need guns to kill people.

Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer.

9-11 terrorists used box cutters & planes.

The Nazis used cyanide gas…

Taking guns from innocent people will not protect innocent people

The problem is not guns.

I would love to see the reaction of the "scary scary gun" folks if a well regulated militia were to show up and secure their local mall for them. The panic and hysterics would be epic.

What? What are you talking about, Jonny?

rob333 -- Those are ridiculous statements.

If a madman wants to kill innocent people...let's make sure he can get a gun that will let him kill at least a dozen in 60 seconds. (How many 'madmen' would feel empowered with only a knife, and how many could he kill with one? Immediately after all those innocent American kids were gunned down at their school in Connecticut, a man attacked a group of Asian school children with a knife. No one was killed. About 13 were injured. ) Killers don't need guns to kill people...but they can do so most easily and efficiently with a gun. Do you believe any of the school massacres would have been possible without guns? Really?

Exactly what is anyone missing out on if they can't own a semi-automatic? Is it more important than NOT allowing a killer easy access to one?

Chisue- what is so rediculous about that list rob reposted?

I would say it is rediculous to think you could keep guns out of the hands of committed killers. Europe is all so gunfree yet they still experience shootings. unless you have some briliant plan to remove all firearms from the world?

Fact: There are hundreds of deaths by gun in Chicago annually. US has no bans.

Fact: There are less than 50 deaths by gun in Toronto. Canads has a gun ban.

Fact: The two cities are very similar in population and makeup.

We can't know the number of suicidal people who could have been saved if they had not had sure death at hand with a gun. You don't get a second chance.

The NRA has blocked the National Institute of Health from collecting statistics on gunshot wounds. Lots of money and lives wasted in hospital care and for survivors who will live out their lives in nursing homes.

Fact: The two cities are very similar in population and makeup.

The two cities are not really similar in population or makeup. Forgetting that you are picking the murder capital of the US, it is still not a good comparison. The Chicago metro area is like 40% more populated, and with a completely different racial mix and a whole lot poorer.

Jeeze, dont you get it. The guns cause gangs to shoot each other. Just like guns cause terror attacks and hunting accidents and suicides and fatal instances of domestic violence. What we need to do is ban all guns. Then, just as our super peaceful human history has shown us there would be no murders or mass killings. Just bunnies and lollypops...