Is this thing on?
:corn:

What is anti-gun control? There is a wide range of views.

I believe mass shootings is more of a cultural issue. They (school shootings) are rare outside the United States. While banning semi-automatic rifles may have some effect (is this what you mean?), I don't know the significance on mass shooting deaths.

This leads me to believe that these shooters will try the black market if they can't get weapons legally. Or, they may just use handguns, which can also be extremely deadly.

One thing that would help, is to work on welfare and military assignments, so fathers could be around their boys (especially), as they are growing up.

Absent fathers have a terrible impact on boys - not on every boy, but on many boys. With all of our military dads being assigned repeatedly overseas, and many welfare programs forcing welfare families to kick the dad out, so they're eligible, it's a disaster.

Go back and check out how many of these mass killers had dads around when they were growing up.

My Dad taught me how to do push-ups when he was home between tours of duty. Oh, and that I had to "police" my room. He didn't seem to be very excited about flashing around any of his military issue weapons, tho. I was quite disappointed at the time, but I got over it when I discovered super soakers.

What? Did those idiots let you play with assault super soakers?

You are ONE person - not "people". Your experience is the fruit of people who fought WITH GUNS, to give you a better (and yes, a safer), place to live.

Would we even HAVE a country, if we had no guns, and simply asked King George VI, "would you please leave us alone?".

How about those Kurds in Iraq? They had almost no guns, and when they displeased Saddam Hussein, he had their whole town killed with poison gas.

What about the Israeli's? Would they be alive today if it wasn't for their guns? Didn't they live without guns before the Holocaust? How did that work out, pray tell?

How about those 8,000 or so men and boys in Srebrenica? They had no guns. The Dutch army was there under UN auspices to protect them, remember? The Serbs just had too many guns, so they stood down, and surrendered.

The Serbs then demanded the Dutch uniforms to embarrass them, and took the men and boys from the city, into the forest - and killed every one of them.

Or go back a few years to an earlier massacre - same place (roughly), but this time it was of the Serbs, not the Bosniaks, who were slaughtered: Javor and Korita massacre's, 1941.

How about the Armenians in the early 1900's? They were pretty well unarmed. So the Turks slaughtered them by the tens of thousands.

How about the American Indian? Tomahawks, knives, and bows and arrows, were no match for guns. Did it work out well for them?

How about the Aztecs? Cortez just killed them off, lickety split - because he had guns and metal swords, and the Aztecs didn't. About the same, for the Inca's. No guns, you die.

Rosicrucians? Knights Templar? Jews in the UK, in the 1600's? All slaughtered or driven out.

You could fill up an entire encyclopedia with all the different groups that have been massacred because they didn't have guns (or have enough guns, or know how to use them well, etc.).

We didn't outlaw airplanes after 9/11 -- and we don't outlaw spoons, knives and forks, because of the obesity problem. That would be stupid.

Same with guns. Guns allowed us to be free, in the first place.

To be people - not sheeple.

You've simply been lucky, but disarming is a very dangerous decision.

Looking back and using history as a guide, it's been a fatal decision or circumstance, for millions.

How else were we going to defend ourselves from our liberal playmates?

I'm no great fan of counterfactual history, but judging by the political landscape of Britain at the time, and the direction of travel in public discourse, I'd say possibly, but maybe half a century later. It maybe that there was always going to be some element of fighting, but the Napoleonic wars may well have blunted Britain's appetite for armed conflict, as well as heightened already apparent popular unease at her treatment of the American colonies.

I don't know how much of the British side of that whole period you get taught over there. There was a good deal of popular support for the American colonists amongst the British public.

Maybe that's why George brought in Hessian mercenaries.

Of course I am just one person - - what are you? A robot?

You asked for one piece of evidence, I gave you one, and you blithely disregarded it. How typical of you, how....convenient.

People WITH guns get shot, people WITHOUT guns get shot. But.... No one, not one single person in all of history ever got shot without a gun. Guns are no defense against getting shot. Guns aren't defense AT ALL. Guns are pure offense.

I didn't realize this discussion had wandered. I gave Adak his response here.

i have seen people shot with bows and arrows. the chinese invented a semi-automatic crossbow. guns are a major defense, it often goes unreported in the media. did you read the op/ed in the la times yesterday??

Come on, how is a gun *defense*?

No, I missed the LA Times op/ed.

I they're comparable to automatic weapons, why aren't our military provided with bows and arrows, knives, bats, automobiles, and all the other (not) analogous crap the NRA is throwing out there?

Semi-automatic.