Peg, I guess the issue that I object to is the attempt to allay your fears by legislating the tool and not the tool weilder. I can show you several studies where criminals were asked why they chose the weapon they commonly used: fists, clubs, knives or guns. Basicly, they like taking from the weak. I can point to the current experience of Brittain, Australia, and Canada, who's gun control laws are stringent, and failing badly. They have sharp increases in violent crime, not the expected reductions.

Real safety comes from inside the person, and I have no idea how to change the criminally minded. They seem impervious to anything but fear. The penal system as currently arranged makes too many of them worse.

If, instead of teaching kids to use good sense when they handle a dangerous item,( barbecue lighter fluid, cars, guns) we try to take the danger out of the tools, we'll just have more of the creativity we see on Jackass TV. There's an estimated 250 million firearms in the US, and like the contents of Pandora's Box, it's too late to make them go away. What I fear is the waste that comes from letting the underlying problem keep getting worse while trying to treat unfixable symptoms. The problems arise inside people and can only be fixed there.