>"1) You have people who get mad enough or insane enough to want to wreak bloody vengeance against any representative of humanity they come across. This is not confined to America; hell I've felt like it on occasion. It merely manifests itself more strongly there because of the nature of your society. Private stresses accumulate on individuals, but the rest of society continues on oblivious, and to the eyes of the person in question, uncaring. In less well off countries the stresses are felt by wider groups; families, or even whole nations if the stresses are economic. Hence there is more of an outlet for frustrated emotion and the consolation of "being in it together"."

The 'stressed out' defense? Are you kidding?
Yes, 'stress' is definable as 'the urge to throttle the living hell out of someone who desperately deserves it.'
However, 'being human' is defined as 'not doing so.' Except in cases of physical assault, use of physical force is never justifiable. I don't give a damn HOW bad they feel. I've probably felt worse. People who set out to 'wreak bloody vengeance' should not be treated as we would human beings. rather, they should be treated as any other mad animal would be, and destroyed with all haste. This is not compassionate, but it is practical. It will save more lives than it takes.

"2) Ability to act on these violent impulses. When they get in a "killing mood" these people will grab whatever weaponry they can and use it until someone stops them forcibly - frequently by killing them, which they
may wish to hapen anyway."

True. So why deny our ability to give them what they want? Swiftly and easily?

"Given: It is unlikely that in the short-term society will be able to prevent some individuals from becoming so alienated that they are consumed by desires for retribution."

Perhaps. This, too, is a matter left to the individual's self-discipline. It is not society's job. Nor is it "society's" fault. All sentient beings make their own choices, know right from wrong, and should be prepared to deal with the consequences of their actions. Again, this falls back under 'behave yourself.'

"Hypothesis:
It is logical, therefore, to limit their access to weaponry that will allow them to maximise their violence."

True, up to a point. Identical access to the same weaponry will allow me to minimise their violence, should I be present.

"Rationale:
The argument that everyone being armed equalises the balance of power is sophistry. The element of surprise will always allow the person to take down at least a few before anyone can intervene. It may indeed provoke him into procuring a superior arsenal to ensure he gets to kill more people. Down this road we have those who stockpile sub-machine guns, mortars and explosives. Should everyone be armed with semtex to deter bombers?"

It may be sophistry. However, it is also true. This has been shown REPEATEDLY in communities where 'pro-gun' legislation has passed, and been followed by a precipitous drop in the crime rate.
You will notice also that the LACK of a balance of power did not prevent the columbine students from dying en masse. Nor did it prevent Klebold and Harris brom building some NINETY bombs out of legal materials.
It should also be noted that you are now attributing logical reasoning to people whom, in your first points, you claimed were maddened by stress. Your 'road' is a dead-end. Here's another point: no matter HOW many guns a thug carries, he will eventually have to pause to reload, or switch weapons. This produces 'free time' in which an armed defender may take him down. However, if no armed defender is present, it's simply 'waiting to die' time.

"By reducing the number of guns in circulation, and limiting their sale by necessity must make it harder for people on the edge to get guns. Yes, they may steal one, or come by one through illegal means. But this would be made progressively more difficult for them as the "gun culture" is reduced and people become less used to seeing them everyday not just on TV, but strapped to the belts of their policemen. If nothing else, restrictions on ownership of guns would prevent all the accidental deaths of kids who blow their heads off because their parents forgot to lock the box
they keep the "family gun" in."

You canot reduce guns in circulation. All you can do is reduce the number that are possessed by law-abiding private citizens. Criminals DO NOT TURN IN THEIR GUNS!
You also seem to demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the resilience of steel. Guns, taken care of, can last for CENTURIES.
It is a good point you make, about the policeman. Tell me, how easily is it to get the 'element of surprise' on a cop? A friend of my father's jokingly remarked once that if they banned guns, and he needed one, he'd simply go out one dark night and waylay a beat cop with a brick. A crook can do this. TWO could do it much more easily.
The 'kids blowing of their own heads' scenario is already extremely rare, (there is no 'All the kids') and now happens only among the fatally irresponsible. From a purely genetic point of view, this is a good thing, for it prevents passage of stupidity. And since gun locks require the gun to be unloaded in the FIRST place, they are worse than useless.

"A final point to levvy against those who seek universal arming. What does it say about a society where its memebrs trust each other so little that they are perpetually on the brink of "drawing" on each other?"

I don't know. What does it say about a society that refuses to defend itself against agression? Of a society that surrenders to lawlessness? Oh, yes, I know, it says "On this spot was once a city."
I don't seek universal arming... I seek universal opportunity to defend and protect oneself.

I also know that the confiscations and registrations you describe have been sucessfully implemented before... in Germany shortly prior to WWII and in Soviet Russia, not that it really matters.

"I hope I have given your brains something to chew upon."

Yes. Chewed and spit out again.
I am not compassionate. I am merely practical.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

(Well, not really, but I'm in a contrary mood.)

On a more serious note, First, one might point out that, had Columbine been limited to homemade bombs, the death toll would have stood at a large zero, all else being equal. (Whether or not all else would be equal is, of course, up for debate.)

Excerpts from contemporary sources:

Surgeons work through night
By Ginny McKibben
Denver Post Staff Writer
April 22 - Surgeons at six area hospitals worked through the night Tuesday to save the lives and preserve the futures of 22 students wounded in the worst school shooting in U.S. history�

�Mark and Shari Schnurr said their 18-year-old daughter, Valeen Schnurr, was thankful for the prayers she received. She had nine shrapnel wounds in her chest�

�The descriptions of wounds suffered by students indeed sounded like the result of warfare: Chests impaled with shrapnel�

Homemade bombs cheap, easy to build
By David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writer
April 23 - The crude bombs that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris carried into Columbine High School could have been assembled in an afternoon with less than $200 worth of materials, according to a federal official at the crime scene.

These were very simple devices,'' said Larry Bettendorf, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent assigned to the case. "If you had all of your components all ready, you could probably assemble these in a couple of hours.''

[description of 20-pound gas bomb follows]

Then again maybe we could all carry axes. One wonders why we don't have drive by axings.

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Ohh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts, and plagues and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing...well I say "Hard Cheese"!
~C. Montgomery Burns

However, as I said, had the situation been without guns, then perhaps more bombs might have been used. But I was only addressing the issue that, as things were, no one was killed by them.

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"No way man!
I've served my time in hell, and I ain't going back...
Not without a fight!"

You can now continue to argue about how everyone having their own personal arsenal makes me and the society in which I live in safer.

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Ohh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts, and plagues and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing...well I say "Hard Cheese"!
~C. Montgomery Burns

Criminals are 75-80% less likely to commit a home invasion if they believe the homeowner possesses a gun and is willing to use it.

Roughly the same percentage would not approach a potential victim they believed to be carrying. Almost NONE would approach a victim they KNEW to be carrying.
Can you blame them? Getting killed generally isn't on the bad guy's agenda.

Firearms, the use and display thereof (because most of the time simply showing it is enough) continue to be used in the prevention of 1-2 million crimes a year in the United States.

Average police response time is 15 minutes, often more in large urban areas. A lot can happen in 15 minutes. Two Dexter's Lab cartoon shorts, for one. Also, roughly the time required to break a door down, (or pick a lock), enter, murder the occupant, loot the place, and depart. And that's IF anybody called the cops in the FIRST place. Generally, when the cops are called, by then it's too late.

If you want to be safe, you've got to make YOURSELF safe. Noone can do it for you.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

That being said, I've always been of the (probably uninformed but nonetheless very fixed) opinion that the REAL reason our forefathers wrote the second amendment was as a check on the government. In other words, giving the average citizen the right to keep and bear arms makes the government (local, state, or national) think twice about using an armed force to supress them. And while I may trust the current government to preserve my rights even if I'm not "holding a gun to their head," I do NOT trust tomorrow's government to do the same. (Perhaps it's sad that I'm not willing to place more faith in people...) So I'm in a bit of a quandry.

I have read that in Switzerland (a country where all males are required to perform military service) that those belonging to the military reserves are given their assault rifles to keep with them at home, rather than store them in a central location. (Note that this is a relatively large percentage of the population.) I cannot provide primary or secondary sources to back this up, but if it's true, I wonder how they manage to keep things controlled so nicely. (Edit: Check out the Swiss Armed Forces website. The page this link goes to describes their compulsory service policy and IMPLIES that those whose duties require weapons keep them in their homes. I recognize it's weak evidence; if you can find anything that proves either way I'd be very interested in seeing it. Here's the link: http://www.vbs.admin.ch/internet/e/armee/auftr/index.htm .)

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Dane

"Mathematicians have long held that a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards would eventually reproduce the collected wisdom of the human race. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Silensky

As you say thought, that only applies to the USA. You can't say that we in the UK would have the eqivalent of 1-2 million less crimes a year if we armed our citizens?

BTW, what London statistics were you interested in First?

I was hoping that someone close to the situation could possibly supply us with actual "primary source" -- that is, what the police reports say, not what the press says -- statistics concerning such information, since its veracity could determine the course (and outcome) of the argument, not to mention whether I trust that source's data anymore.

I have also, incidentally, heard the same things about Australia's recent confiscation, but to a lesser degree. I hope to get verification on that, as well.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi