Been lurking on this thread, as I have strong opinions about gun control (I own around 20 or so guns).

I ask this to you, Grisha: who determines how many guns a person should have? You? I've never shot a person (as a civilian), but I'm punished for a MINUTE percentage of gun owners who do despicable things like what happened in Colorado?

Those who wish to do wrong will do so regardless of the law. That is why they are criminals. Gun control only hurts those who wish to LEGALLY own guns. Criminals will get guns regardless.

Before someone asks why I feel the need to own so many guns, allow me to answer in advance: 1)Many of them were passed down from my father and grandfather, and I intend to pass them down to my son; 2)Because I can.

I think the issue isn't that Solaris is saying the average citizen is always going to be better in the situation than a cop. The point is that an armed citizen and the cop should be better in that situation than they currently are.

Also, what exact regulation would have stopped this guy from getting an AR-15? (One of the most prolific guns available in the US). And his choice of magazine that the media loves to scream about probably saved people due to its crappy feed system causing the weapon to jam. It does not take long to reload modern semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines.

That's a whole different can of worms there, one that deserves its own thread. I would suggest that our 'representative republic' is successful only due to the lack of alternatives. It's a terrible form of government, wasteful, inefficient, and far too easy swayed by rhetoric and hyperbole. To put it simply: people are stupid.

Let me point out a few things. In general movie theaters are gun free zones. Large numbers of people go to them on a daily basis. If you know your going to a location that has policies that stop you from entering with a weapon are you going to take your weapon, probably not.

Now for everying that thinks that allowing weapons into theaters is a good idea, Why? A theater is the worst place to take a gun. Just think about it for a second. You go to a theater and watch a movie, that includes gunfire and explosions. can you, without military training, tell if those are real or not.

Yes. Absolutely, yes. If you've ever been around gunshots and explosions of the real sort (which the military hardly has a monopoly on), you're not fooled for a second by the sound effects on television. I recommend arranging to be ahead of a shooter (in a safe and controlled manner, of course) so that you can hear and experience gunshots directed towards you. It's good to know what that's like so you don't confuse it for anything else.
Furthermore, a guy who sits there and sprays bullets wildly, there's words for people like him. They aren't nice words. Shoot if you have a target - you know, a guy standing there, shooting people. If you don't have a target, don't shoot. Recon by fire has its place. That place is not anywhere around civilians.

So maybe it's time to encourage more firearms in places, not less? I notice a lot of shootings tend to happen in "gun free" zones. Schools and colleges immediately come to mind, and the movie theater now. That's because gun free zones are "soft" targets. A "hard" target, in the case of a civilian locale, might be something like a police station or shooting range. Places which seem to have a rather low rate of firearms violence.

As for the AR-15 jamming? I'll bet he never cleaned it.

So if more firearms in public places means that there will be less violence, doesn't that mean that by that logic places like Somalia and Iraq should be some of the safest places on earth? You guys keep going on about how it will help and all that, but you've done nothing more than provide a score of anecdotal evidence that more guns make people safer, and a single flawed study. If it's so self evident, finding hard evidence to support your supposition should be a piece of cake.

You wanna keep it to Western cultures? Somalia and Iraq have vastly different cultures than America and Europe, with vastly different values.

If it's so self-evident that we're wrong, disprove us.

Speaking of armed citizens thwarting evil... Apparently even 11 year old girls can do it too. Not that I would recommend giving guns to children mind you. Just saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiiQQ...eature=related

I don't care how good a shot you are, you can't defend against a suicide bomber if you don't know he's there until he pulls the cord. To say nothing about IEDs, armored vehicles, and so on, and so on...

So what is unique about the American culture that makes firearms a viable deterrent, but not in the Middle East or Africa? Are they just inherently driven to kill and murder over there?[/sarcasm]

Because you're arguing against the current orthodoxy, ergo the burden of proof is on your side. Maybe if it was still the 1870's and we were in the frontier I might have to argue the virtues of gun control. But we aren't. Gun control is the norm for the majority of not just the US, but the western world.

Suicide bombing isn't the only form of violence in either of those nations. Or even, really, the main. There are shootouts just as bad if not worse than the Colorado shooting as well as people blowing people up.