[mrnoodle]

i think there's another piece to the argument as well. by disarming the citizenry, we can fool ourselves into thinking that finally we have this "violence" thing fixed. in reality, we're no safer than we were 300 years ago -- we're perhaps less safe, although we like to think otherwise.

anyway, my point is that we all want to disassociate ourselves from our inherently violent nature, and mistakenly think that a law banning weapons is a step in that direction.