Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Of course these horrible events happen. But the point is would this *not*
have happened if all those who were murdered owned guns? They'd have had
to keep them about their person night and day - and not sleep in case that
madman waited till late to perpetrate his crime. I'd also ponder how many
accidental deaths there would be if everyone carried guns with them. I'd
hazard a guess at far more than there are murders.

Ah yes, well there were are onto a different tack and the answer to that
is mostly "it depends". I've lived in countries where guns are permitted
and those where they are banned. The USA appears to be a real exceptiion
in terms of culture. People blast away at each other there without
thinkign much about what they are up to and also they tend to be fairly
careless.

Switzerland permits citizens to own guns of types that would see them
run into prison fairly rapidly here and they don't run amok and kill
each other in hundreds. In some countries it's a legal right to own
assault rifles and in general although those countries have problems,
the accident rate doesn't seem to be terrible, or possibly it just
shrinks into insignificance compared to their other problems. My
relatives serving in Iraq had great trouble understanding that all
households are permitted to own a number of self-loading weapons, for
example. Yet my recollectionf o Iraqi's before the present mess is that
in general they are respectful and larely westernised and don't go
around "popping caps" in the "ass" of anyone they disagree with.