Another reasonable response to an everyday irritation by an American

You're right, there are perhaps....dozens such incidents a year. In a nation where there are tens of millions of gun owners.

I'll take your point about defending your house, but don't you think it would cause a lot less trouble to have better security measures in place instead of risking killing someone?

So it's not worth trying to limit the amount of deadly weapons people have access to, because they could just grab a knife anyway?

Another shooting in a Cinema, why won't they ban those movies to save the people!

They have and you don't. It's nothing to be proud about.

One school shooting is one school shooting too many.

One school stabbing is one too many!

It might sound like madness to you, but in a society that values liberty you don't take something away from millions for the criminal actions of a few psychopaths.

You shouldn't be proud of your 'logic'. Going to the cinema doesn't kill people. Shooting them does. Ban the thing they are shooting people with.

One school stabbing is one too many!

It might sound like madness to you, but in a society that values liberty you don't take something away from millions for the criminal actions of a few psychopaths.

No-one can walk into a school and stab most of the people in it, knives are short range weapons. Also, knives have real uses and are unfortunately used for harm by some. Guns have no other use than to hurt others. (Apart from hunting guns, which I do think people should be allowed to own.)
So I don't see why they shouldn't be banned, if a society values liberty so much why would it want its citizens to live in fear of other citizens in the knowledge they possess an object which is only ever intended to harm? Strange kind of freedom.

A 'few' psychopaths? Last year in the US, there were probably over 10,000 people killed by guns. That's not including people who committed suicide with guns, and those who survived shootings.

Meanwhile in the UK, where the gun laws are strict, there are about 40-50 murders per year with guns..

I'm glad you brought these stats up actually. There were a little under 10,000 gun deaths in the US in 2012. The vast majority of these were committed by criminals with illegal weapons. But shall we dig a little deeper? The murder rate in the US is undoubtedly higher than in the UK, but even a cursory look at the socio-economic factors that motivate such crimes along with the geographical locations and demographics within which these murders happen show us that the two nations are really incomparable on the macro-cosmic scale.

But here's a nice comparison, violent crime is very similar in London and New York. Yes, there is less gun crime, but that doesn't mean there is less violent crime. Remove guns and there would still be multitudes more murders in the US per year than in the UK, it's due to their demographics, cities like Detroit and Chicago that see gangland wars on a daily basis.

So once again, why remove legal firearms from law-abiding citizens on the basis of a few psychopaths and the actions of criminals? Criminals who will still have guns if you remove them from law-abiding citizens.

I'm glad you brought these stats up actually. There were a little under 10,000 gun deaths in the US in 2012. The vast majority of these were committed by criminals with illegal weapons. But shall we dig a little deeper? The murder rate in the US is undoubtedly higher than in the UK, but even a cursory look at the socio-economic factors that motivate such crimes along with the geographical locations and demographics within which these murders happen show us that the two nations are really incomparable on the macro-cosmic scale.

But here's a nice comparison, violent crime is very similar in London and New York. Yes, there is less gun crime, but that doesn't mean there is less violent crime. Remove guns and there would still be multitudes more murders in the US per year than in the UK, it's due to their demographics, cities like Detroit and Chicago that see gangland wars on a daily basis.

So once again, why remove legal firearms from law-abiding citizens on the basis of a few psychopaths and the actions of criminals? Criminals who will still have guns if you remove them from law-abiding citizens.

Sure, there will still be a lot of murders. But what about all the people who are murdered or shot (but not fatally) by non-gang members? Do they all of a sudden not matter? Children are murdered so often in the US, innocent people who have no relation to gangs are murdered very often in the US. Does that not matter, aslong as other people can still buy their guns?

I get that some people use them for hunting, so I think that the law should be slightly different for hunting guns. But the rest should be restricted much, much harsher than they are currently, in my opinion anyway.

Once again, you would remove guns from law-abiding citizens for the actions of criminals with illegal guns? Do you think if guns were outlawed tomorrow criminals would hand them in? You'd be in a situation were only criminals have these guns, and the supply would not run out for decades. Of course every victim of gun crime is a victim too many, but that's true of any crime.

The level of gunfire killings and woundings in the US would immediately and drastically fall if guns were prohibited in private hands. Contrary to your assertion, many gunfire incidents occur in domestic residences between people who know each other. Many involve children. There is also no evidence to support your assertion that the US can be compared to the UK. Deaths per capita due to guns are dramatically higher in the US. The assertion that this is all down to gang culture is implausible. It's far more plausible that gang culture has arisen and responded to the relentless growth of gun ownership, gun use by police forces and gun use in petty crime.

It would be useful if one state in the US (somewhere like New York or Chicago) banned all private gun ownership and had serious campaigns to exclude guns and to remove them from gang ownership. We would then see to what extent the removal of guns influences the US murder rate.

Oh no, I know that it wouldn't work to just ban them straight away. But perhaps a more gradual approach to it? Even though criminals would still have guns, it would still be much more difficult for them to get. Ofcourse many would be able to still, but a few less is still good.

But what is the point of guns, other than for sports/hunting? I don't think defense is really a valid point,there are other ways of defending yourself/your property than shooting somebody.