"Cliff" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 6 May 2006 17:21:17 -0700, "Hawke" wrote:

At least 8 to 1 odds against.

Which just goes to show that a reasonable argument or true statement is
not
always supported by statistics. Sometimes the statistics say things that
are
not supported by facts. In this case your statistics say one thing but
the
truth lies somewhere else.

It's in the dead bodies.

You might find statistics that back up your
argument but history shows that when no one has a gun violence is just as
frequent, sometime more so. Because violence isn't determined by what
tool
is available to harm someone with.

Then get a club or something similar in "violence" if you want to be
violent.
BTW, Define "harm". And "want".

It is determined by the intent of the
perpetrator. That hasn't changed in 10,000 years either.

Consider today's intent in getting those guns vs. tomorrow's dead
bodies. Or yesterday's vs. today's.
Probably all guns were aquired by people making the same sort
of claims as you.

Also recall that they live on, long after you do, probably.
And make great bait for thieves.
--
Cliff

It's unfortunate that there are people that use firearms to the detriment of
others. However, you have to remember that of all the guns in this country
only a very small fraction of them are used improperly. Half of all the
households in America have a gun in it. In the vast majority of cases they
are used properly and no one is ever harmed with it. Given the ubiquity of
guns they are always going to be around, which makes the idea of eliminating
them an inane idea. Might as well talk about eliminating the house fly.

Since they are always going to be around and that only a tiny percentage of
them are used wrongly. It's not rational to remove them from everyone who
uses them safely. Your problem is with the small group of people who use
guns to commit crimes. I would suspect that even you would not support
banning all guns if people didn't use them in crimes. If everyone used them
properly why shouldn't people have them? So the real question is not one of
banning all guns it's really about doing something about the people who
commit violent crimes and use guns to do it. Find a way to do something
about them and there is no gun problem. Unless of course you are one of
those people who is inherently afraid of weapons and thus wants to see them
all eliminated. If so, there is nothing to discuss except meaningless
statistics.

Hawke