LEJ,

Bit of a logical jump there, eh?

Big Daddy said: "If all firearms magically disappeared and were then outlawed everywhere in the world, there'd be people building them in basements and garages and caves all over the world."

How do you get from that to "are most of you Canadians fabricating handguns on your workbenches?"

Nobody said anything about "most people," only that people, implying "some people" would build them in their basements and garages.

Seems like a reasonable statement to me. I know quite a few people with the tools and technical knowhow (I live in an automotive city) to make pretty sophisticated weapons and, if they weren't available from any other source, you can bet somebody would be running a cottage industry making them.

That said, I might also point out that it's not even that difficult to make an effective weapon. Ever seen a zip-gun?

For our Brit friends trying to get their heads around this debate, I would also not that until the 1970s virtually every male American was drafted into the military for a few years and received weapons training of some kind.

I'm pretty convinced that that lack of training after the draft was ended is responsible for a lot of the accidental shootings that everybody decries and a more cavalier attitude toward what a handgun can do.

Add to that the "training" kids get from video games (kill, kill, kill, kill) and you get a Columbine High mentality. That alone is enough to make me want to carry a weapon in a lot of places.....

cheers,

david