Shot anyone recently? No? Then how the fuck would you know what is going through the mind of a shooter?

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

In fairness, you should also state that Switzerland allows its citizenry to own machineguns, and every home bearing a member of the military (every able-bodied man age 19 to 39 in Swiss society) has a machinegun in it as a matter of legal requirement. It's not uncommon to see people walking down the streets of Geneva, shopping after a day of range practice, Sig SG 510 slung over their shoulder.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

I'd gladly take a replica of Switzerland's gun policy.

An "assault weapons" (nebulous term, that) ban would, assuming zero murderers using that method would instead use another method to kill, lower gun crime by a whopping 2%!

Think about that for a second. 2% - not of violent crime - just crimes committed with guns. And that's making the cheery, sunshine-filled assumption those crimes would not be committed by any other means in the absence of "assault weapons". Or that those "assault weapons" wouldn't be obtained illegally and then used.

What a difference it would make!

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

If it increases my odds of not getting shot, I'll take it. Why are you crying about a 2% decrease? It's still a decrease. I'm not even necessarilly for an assault rifle ban, just make it hard as hell to get the permit for one.

"Washington is a "shall-issue" state and will grant concealed carry permits to all applicants that meet the criteria. There are no training requirements." We don't register long guns, just pistols and that's when purchased from a dealer. There is no documentation required when selling firearms privately. If you owned a FA rifle before 1994 you get to keep it, because what happened pre 1994 stays pre 1994. Yet people here bitch that laws are too strict because we can't have sawed off shotguns or whatever it is they complain about.

My state's gun laws are ridiculously loose. This isn't 1791. 1791 didn't have rampant drug use, gangs, and organized crime. They didn't have AR-10s during the Revolution. More important though, they didn't have cheap ass 9mm's on every corner being traded like candy. The national population was 4 million, we are now at 314 million. Times have changed, our population has changed, our culture has changed, our weaponry has changed, but our stupid gun laws remain loose.

I'm saying it isn't worth it, not by a long shot. For the time, effort, and money spent focusing on this, we're not getting a good return on investment at all. It's like having the stress, hours, and responsibility of a high-end corporate position and being comfortable with McDonald's wages. There's nothing wrong with earning minimum wage, but only if you're doing equivalent work.

All of that energy, time, discussion, money, etc., would be far better spent addressing the issues of why so damn many people feel the need to commit crime and violent acts, and address the factors that are known to contribute to and exacerbate them. It's addressing the perception of risk, rather than actual risk.

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I think we should ship out 310 million from this country and only retain confirmed Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, return to an Agrarian society, re-establish slavery, re-elect the corpse of Thomas Jefferson, and retain access to all 21st century weaponry. Also, let's make the stars and bars the national flag.

Or maybe channel some of the anti-gun money into our inner city educational system. Either one.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

More school money won't give parents more time with children or, for other parents, the motivation to take interest in their child's education.

Shipping out 310 million people should lower class sizes, though. Also if we strip the curriculum down to just studying the Constitution and the Bible I think grades would improve.

Oh really? You'll take anything to decrease your odds of getting shot? Or only what you consider to be reasonable?

There's people on this board that agree with fenderbender. Hilarious! I know I'm on the right side of the debate because I am in disagreement with him.

And I know I'm on the right side because nobody ever actually answers my questions or discusses my points. It's always some sort of deflection or personal attack.

FYI, I get my share of PMs from people who say they agree with me but choose not to post on PWR

Well, you are what I consider "fringe right." I jump back and forth on topics, rarely am I moderate on an issue, but I don't side left or right down the line on matters. You asked if "I would do anything" to decrease my chances of being shot? Hell no, that's silly. I learned at young age that the only time a solution is ALWAYS wrong is when it includes the words "always, all, every, anything" etc. So no, I would not do ANYTHING.

When we want to lower gun violence, and we find items that could trim the American death toll, we are probably going to have to accept small, incremental changes. There is no sweeping solution that will instantly and drastically cut homicide rates, but enacting various laws that hint at lowering rates, yes that is worth trying.

FYI, I went back to read what your point was, to actually address it, and I didn't see you make a point.

Instead of trying to lower gun violence, why don't we try to lower violence all together.

I am a strong believer that games like Grand Theft Auto, movies involving mayhem, destruction and death do desensitize kids more and more as they play / watch them.

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Member formally known as AC59

No, Jiggy. Only gun violence is bad. 'Cause it's the guns, y'know. Other violence is cool.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Especially the photo that you linked, and that's circulating the net of the image of the man with the string, bat, knife and gun.

I've come to the hard conclusion that guns need more regulation. We heavily regulate or ban explosives; I cannot own a loaded hand grenade because it is too dangerous. I can't go to a gun show and buy pipe bombs, with or without a transference of title.

The point is, what makes a firearm a firearm? It is that it is a projectile being launched by a propellant. To me it is obvious that the only difference between a bomb and a gun is that a gun has a barrel and can limit the range and area of inflicted damage. I can't look at a knife, hit a button, and have my brains instantly splattered on the wall behind me.

There are categories of weapons and I would list them as:

A) Hand to hand weapons - knives, bludgeoning devices, strangulation devices
B) Firearms - pistols and long arms
C) Small explosives - Grenades, pipebombs/homemade bombs
D) Weapons of mass destruction - Big Boy

The government heavily regulates C and D and the debate is on B, which has some regulation already. The fact that people are being murdered with guns at a higher rate than any other device clearly brings forth evidence that enough is not being done to regulate them. I know regulation is a buzz word for Orwellian dystopia, but when we are at a point in society where it crosses someone's mind, even a lunatic's, that it is okay to enter a school and randomly murder innocent children, we need to act. Sandyhook was a watershed moment. It shows that we are not capable of handling the firepower that we currently possess.

Would a gun ban get rid of all weapons in this country? No. But if we don't take some action, who will be surprised when the senseless murders continue and probably get worse? I won't.

It's awesome when you guys consistently disregard everything we say. NO ONE ONLY BLAMES GUNS. But guns ARE part of the problem.

If a plumber comes to a job without his tools... what is he going to do to fix the leak? Maybe try to use something else that is less effective, but nonetheless...

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

You're proving my point. Guns are still squarely in the focus when it still comes down to people's actions and decisions.

If a plumber comes to a job without his tools, we address the issue of him forgetting his tools; we don't try to figure out what's wrong with the tools.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

Well you responded to my question which is what I'm looking for. I'm glad to hear that you wouldn't accept anything to try and lower homicide rates. You're right, the world is not so black and white and it's always refreshing to hear that from anybody. But allow me to explain a few thoughts I have on this issue.

So lets be clear on what the issue is: Homicide. Well why is homicide bad? Because people die...just like you said...we need to trim the American "death toll". So really it's death. Last i checked less than 300 people were murdered with assault rifles in 2011 - and that's assuming that those murders wouldn't have been committed with some other type of weapon OR that those assault rifles would not have been obtained illegally (i'm willing to bet some were already). Also, we would have to take into account incidents where a shooting was stopped because somebody had an assault rifle (just read a story about some teenagers in Texas that stopped a shooting with an AR-15). Swimming pools by comparison kill more people than that...so why don't we ban swimming pools? Because they serve a purpose? Well so do guns. Because it's impossible to completely ban? Well so are guns. This gets me to my first point about gun control - it's an agenda. The issue is that it's warfare against lifestyles. Most people like to swim, so it won't get banned. There's a lot more people however that don't like guns and are willing to ban them...even though there is a whole laundry list of objects we could ban that contribute to more deaths. Help me out here Evan cause you seem like a smart guy. Why do so many people support banning assault rifles but not other items that are correlated with more death?

Another point I would like to make is that violent crimes including homicide and gun homicide continue to drop and have been for over 20 years. How could this be when we haven't passed any major gun legislation (in fact concealed carrying has gotten a lot less restrictive) and when both the amount of guns in circulation and gun ownership rates keep increasing in this country? There are more guns every day in this country but the gun murders keep dropping. Why can't we just continue to allow things to flow in the right direction like they already are?

But... What about the CHILDREN? They'll never be safe unless we pass more laws! Laws keep children safe, not parents, not teachers, not school administrators, not police. LAWS PROTECT US ALL FROM HARM!

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000