How do you feel about gun control? Would it save lives?

Hasn't yet. Why would it start doing so now?

Not in the least.

In fact it may cost lives, and make us all less safe in many ways.

We have never had a war in the U.S. yet. The Chinese said many years ago that it would be foolish to ever attack the U.S. because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. Does that make us more safe form attacks ?

Because 50% of American households have guns does that not cause everyone to be safer by a criminal having to wonder which house to choose to rob ? Does that not directly or indirectly make you safer in your home ?

Because some of us have chosen to carry our firearms for self defense, does that not also make all people out in public safer. Same thing a criminal must wonder if they target the wrong person might this be their last day ? Does that not also make everyone out in public safer ?

Now this gun control stuff may save some lives BUT how many would be sacrificed due to not having firearms to protect themselves when they need to. Because at some point many will need to protect themselves. Because a violet crime happens in seconds, while the cops are only minutes away. The cops have no obligation under the law to take any action to protect you if you need help. Not to mention the protection from aggressors foreign and domestic. Our best bet as always is to be individually self sufficient.

Are you talking about gun control or a gun ban?

How would it save lives? The only people that it would effect are those who follow the law. Do you think that some one who commits murder says to themselves "Hey, you know what? I've got this gun sitting around that I haven't used very much. I think I'm going to go into an area that doesn't allow any guns so I certain that no one can shoot back at me and start killing people. Yeah, that sounds fun! Maybe I'll stop and get some nachos first because I've got the munchies".

Murder is already illegal!

All of this talk and spending money about guns is wasted if nothing is done to the mindset of the criminal. Make the laws harder. You use a gun to commit a crime, you go to jail for a very very long time. You use a gun to commit murder, you die. Enforcement of the law stops crime!

For the rest of his life, Obama will have ARMED Secret Service members around him. Pelosi already has ARMED private security. I wonder if all of those who are trying to pass these bans would be as willing to focus on the gun part if there guards no longer could use them?

I can support back ground checks even a short waiting to complete the check. But a ban on a rifle because of it's "looks" is silly. Would it save lives or not is not really the question. Because if you oppress the people enough you can make it "appear" that you have achieved any goal that you have set. The question is at what price of our freedoms are we willing to pay to save lives? We can ban all cars and save far more lives than banning guns.

@ Peanut in reality if you come here as a tourist the chance of you seeing a "LAW Abiding" person other than Police or Armed Security carrying a gun would be next to nil. Because Gun Control laws only effect law abiding citizens. Oh, the number of people killed accidently shootings is only about 1500 a year. far to many but Not "crazy" about 4,000 people die in fires each year.

Hasn't so far.

All Gun Control has managed to do throughout history is make one group of people powerless to defend themselves from another group of people. It has been the "silent partner" of higher crime, genocide, and general terrorization of the common people, which is why our Founding Fathers put the Second Amendment into the US Constitution.

It's also why those who seek to subjugate us must first, by hook or by crook, get us to surrender our firearms, using every underhanded tactic like demanding what we need them for, or claiming our rights are less important than the rights of our children not to be murdered, when in fact it is gun control itself which allows such things to happen (notice the killings all happen in "gun free" zones like schools and theaters which have "no guns" posted??)

Gun Control is a sucker's game, made up of two kinds of people:

1) Evil Demagogues: These are people who know gun control is a sucker's bet for the masses, but want it anyway so they can abuse the masses and perpetrate their elitist bent upon them without fear of recourse.

2) True Believers: These are the people who are easily swayed by the pretty lies of the Evil Demagogues, who have the best intentions and accept the Evil Demagogues ideas as the solution. True Believers are absolutely necessary for Gun Control to succeed, as their motives are pure and they argue from pure emotion and feelings, which cannot be easily debunked as direct lies and errors and omissions of fact. Because True Believers are SINCERE in what they do, their credibility is higher than those of the Evil Demagogues.

However, True Believers eventually figure out the lie, and then whine about how they were tricked or "had no idea this would happen" because they had blinded themselves to reality through their own good intentions. And the Demagogues walk away laughing, leaving the True Believers to hold the bag for the evil and death that comes with Gun Control.

Then the Demagogues go and recruit more True Believers. They make a pretty good living at it, too.

Gun control doesn't save lives; It never has, it never will. What it does is RISK the lives of those who are not politically connected and makes victims of those with the least political voice. Gun Control is despicable in its perversion of justice and its victimization of those least able to survive being victimized.

And those Evil Demagogues who preach it are the most despicable pieces of roach dung who walks upright to ever besmirch the planet by refusing to die at birth.

Remember that without the sucker True Believers, the Evil Demagogues are too easily exposed as the opportunistic dirtbags they are.

So don't be a True Believer when it comes to Gun Control -- much like the Judenrat, you'll get hosed right along with the rest of us, only your culpability will be higher because you were told better and didn't listen.

My wife just got a trigger job on her favorite revolver. It'll both save and take lives if anybody ever tries to break in to our home. That's gun control.

Laws restricting the ownership and carry of firearms can be expected to alter the way people kill each other without decreasing the death rate. When the Gun Control Act of 1968 made it difficult for criminals to get their "Saturday Night Special" cheap, small-caliber handguns, criminals got larger, more powerful handguns. Likewise, if we submit to an "assault weapons" ban restricting semi-automatic AK-47's and AR-15's, I fully expect to see a brisk business in smuggling in the fully automatic versions from Mexico, where they've always been both illegal and plentiful. Keep in mind that for $75, you can have a street vendor in Afghanistan make you an AK, and he'll think he's put one over on you. There are literally millions of the fully automatic version floating around the third world, ready to sell to the best bidder.

Its a waste of time.

Does anyone really think that they bad people will be stopped by making guns harder to get? You'll just see shootings using guns that were bought illegally. Or you'll see a rise in the use of homemade explosives made with common things you can buy at walmart and home depot.

The notion of 'gun control' is a recurring knee jerk, emotional reaction to a whatever the 'tragedy of the week' is this week. We should be focusing all that attention on trying to find ways to identify the nutjobs that are doing the shooting. There are MILLIONS of guns that legally owned by responsible adults that will NEVER kill another person. Why make it harder for them to buy guns? Instead, try to spot the crazies and make it harder for THEM to do bad things.

Unfortunately the whole issue becomes rather confusing, especially in times like these.

There are at least 3 distinct categories of gun related mortality (and each needs its own set of solutions to save lives/prevent accidents): 1. illegal guns in the hands of criminals, 2. legally purchased guns in the hands of the insane 3. gun accidents from poor handling or parent's guns in the hands of youth.

Illegal guns is an issue for better law enforcement.

Keeping guns out of the hands of insane would require all sales to go through an FFL dealer and better screening of potential gun buyers. (I favor this approach, even though many would hate it.)

Gun accidents could be improved with better training and biometric gun safes/smart gun technology. (Again this would not be popular for various reasons.)

The previous US 'assault weapons ban' has been statistically shown fairly worthless in making any real impact on gun deaths. (It may be popular with law enforcement and is certainly a major focus of the anti-gun crowd.) However it does appear to have dramatically reduced 'rampage shootings' when a more extensive ban was enacted in Australia.

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.f...

Why there was such a dramatic difference from the US is not clear to me and it appears that there were a variety of comprehensive changes made at the same time which had more to do with better law enforcement. Although there is often a reduction in rampage shootings with extreme gun control, there may also be an increase in violent crimes in a unarmed society.

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

Other countries (especially Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and to a lessor extent Germany) have a fairly high rate of gun ownership but much lower rates of gun violence compared to the US. Although its tempting to give all the credit to their stricter gun laws which determine who can own guns and how much training they must have to continue ownership, I think its not quite that simple. Compared to the US they have more stable economies, better law enforcement and more wholesome and homogeneous societies. They have a lower number of 'rampage shootings' by the insane largely due to greater scrutiny of gun buyers.

Yes, I know that if do a good job of controlling the gun in my hands, it may save my life or that of my family.

considering gun control is responsible for more than 250 million recorded/documented deaths in the last 100 years, so I'm gonna say no...

China alone is responsible for more than 100 million deaths. many of them because no one was allowed guns so they couldn't stand up for themselves against a murderous communist regime.

Hitler banned guns and not long after was able to carry out his holocaust with almost no resistance from the populace, since they had no means to defend themselves. 6 million died at gun control's hands.

Stalin prohibited civilians from having even a hunting rifle, so there was no problem rounding up 50 million innocent people and putting them into labor death camps. millions more starved outside because they were unable to feed themselves, now that they have no means of hunting for food.

outside of communism & fascism, Africans suffered horribly during the tumultuous years 1950s thru 1990s, local gangs, rebels or warlords prohibited private firearms ownership as result tens of millions starved or were massacred, now unable to defend themselves, their property, farms or hunt for food. humanitarian donations from the US were ineffective as once it got over there the people had no means of protecting the aid and preventing the warlords and gangs from stealing it!

then there's mexico. people live in fear all the time, the police and military powerless to exert any control over the cartels. the cartels kill anyone they like, rob, rape, assault whoever they like because they got the guns, more guns than the authorities. civilians banned from having any means of protection, are at the complete mercy of the violent criminals. of course the criminals show no mercy.

there's many more examples of how gun control is favoring criminals, endangering or killing law abiding citizens. clearly gun control does nothing but get people killed. quite hte opposite should be implemented, but it seems the sense people had 100 years ago, modern day people do not have.

No

Drugs and drunk driving have been against the law for years and that does not help.

Having a gun will not help all the time but being defenseless will never help..

Isn't it better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it!!

A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again."