Ok kids, lets play nice...

Lepus Rex; Your last post demonstrates a real problem, and a root cause of the really vehement arguments, sometimes with very little logic behind them, on both sides of the "gun control" fight. There is a "rural" point of view, in which total self-reliance is the ideal, and an "urban" point of view in which the ideal is reliance on a collective system, such as government. Each side sees the other as a direct threat to its survival. It all comes together in the "gun-control" debates, which usually start as reasoned discussion but in a very few minutes turn into illogical name-calling and irrational argument.

A few years ago, I listened to a "debate" between an NRA president and the chairman of Handgun Control Inc. The HCI guy's oldest son had been murdered with a handgun by the "Zodiac" killer, and the NRA guy had been charged with murder at age 14 for shooting a burglar who broke into his home. (Acquitted.) They were supposed to argue calmly and rationally about something that was a gut-level emotional survival issue for both of them. The rational part of the debate lasted nearly 5 minutes.

As near as I can tell, none of the arguments promoting "Gun-control" hold water. For example the argument that Japan has a lower gun-crime rate than the U.S. because of the strict gun laws. Japanese-Americans have access to all the firearms available to any American citizen, yet their gun-crime rate is lower than the rate in Japan.

And that business about a gun in the home is more likely used on an innocent friend or family member than an intruder. IT's hard to measure a negative quantity, so there is no statistic for how many intrusions don't happen because of armed homeowners.

I guess that's enough for now.

O'Meara