Hhmmm. Guns outlawed after one little massacre. Those crazy Brits.

To respond to Kim, I submit this article from Salon magazine which talks at length about the issue she mentioned regarding the rise in crime in Australia after the gun buyback program there, which happened as a result of the Port Arthur killings. Apparently the Attorney General of Australia disagrees with her interpretation, because he wrote a letter to Heston denouncing the NRAs false use of the Australian situation as support for their (the NRA) crazy ideas about gun ownership. Read all about it. I think Rick Fielding brought this situation up in a thread a while back.

Also, I live in Washington, DC, and while it is true that we have gun violence problems here, they have sharply declined over the last decade or so, and are largely a function of the drug trade (America's War on Drugs being an entirely separate unsavory issue). And, while it is true that there is a ban on handguns in the district, they are very easy to procure in nearby Virginia, which has very lax handgun controls, and has therefore been flooded with weapons, as have so many loosely controlled markets, especially those near a major urban area. This is one of the main issues cited in the spate of recent suits against the gun industry brought by many U.S. cities.

I read a travel article not too long ago about British Columbia. The American author described going into a cafe and having a dishevelled, disturbed person who was fidgety and muttering to himself sit down close by. He said it made him nervous, and he was looking to move, when he remembered that he was in Canada and tat therefore the person in question was pretty unlikely to be armed. The realization shocked him. I think a lot of Americans don't realize that that sort of freedom from fear is something we are all missing out on as a result of our insane gun laws.