[Amadeus]

markhazlett9, on 26 Apr, 2009 - 02:32 PM, said:

firebolt, on 26 Apr, 2009 - 05:51 AM, said:

Ahh.. so what about the hundreds of thousands of guns that are already out. Just disregard that. And also the blackmarket. Tougher laws just make more trouble. It makes people paranoid and start doing crazy things.

here in Canada we have much much stricter laws when it comes to guns and have one of the gun deaths in the world. I think that can help out alot and do the opposite.

It would if we compared apples to apples...we are not. The gun control situation in Canada is not applicable to the U.S. It was never part of our constitutional rights to bear arms. Implementing gun control where a form of control is in place is much different than starting from scratch. It also bears noting that Canada has some very staunch opposition to the gun control in place here...it is still a controversial subject.

Keep in mind we also (Canada) have shooting deaths here...some of them very nasty. Guy in Alberta who killed 4 police officers, and the school shooting that really set the stage - Marc Lépine:

http://en.wikipedia....arc_L%C3%A9pine

This stuff all happens in Canada as well, and we have some of the strictest gun control legislation sets around.

[firebolt]

Thats a great list his got there. Canada = Dangerous

[333OnlyHalfEvil]

I think gun control is stupid. The people who are going to do the shootings are going to get the guns one way or another. All gun control does is weaken everyone else in terms of putting up a potential defense.

[Choscura]

Fun facts:

-Gun problems are much more pronounced in overcrowded places- big cities, etc

-Gun problems are much LESS pronounced in places (crowded or not) where all people are equally able to get the same guns, and where there is the least distinct economic divide. places such as Danao in the phillipines, where every house has a gun and virtually every rice paddy contains a gun workshop have very infrequent instances of violent crime compared to other areas in the same country, among the same people groups.

-The gun-shooting culture in most of the US is roughly comparable to the Shaolin Kung-fu monastaries in China. You go to a special place with other people who are there to do the same thing and engage in a highly disciplined set of activities which are highly representative of violence and strive for the utmost control and precision. Both are VERY mentally draining and both are surprisingly physically draining. Both require copious amounts of both skill and discipline to do well. And both are cheapened by the idiots who make movies involving either set of these disciplines.

-comparing a katana to *any* gun is like comparing a log raft to an aircraft carrier. Sure the katana was great at the time, but if you look objectively at the advancements that made both possible and useful, then you will most likely be left with one attitude about the katana: "I guess this is the best they could do at the time- the blade's OK, shame about the handle". The "advanced layered steel blade" construction was originally an accident of the smelting process they used for the iron ore, which impregnated the outer layer with carbon from the charcoal, and instead of taking this discovery and utilizing it, they tried to average it out by mixing the metal together. This same accident of smelting iron allowed a technology called 'case hardening' to be developed: you take a soft, flexible piece of iron or mild (low carbon) steel and bake carbon into the outside layer (origianlly by sealing the steel in an airtight box with charcoal, now blast furnaces with sealed atmospheres are used) and then you quench that- so instead of getting a rough average, you get a much more perfect surface with which to finish the work. Combine this with the many various advancements (such as rifling, the invention of the breech-loading rifled gun, the invention of the cardridge, the invention of the primer, the various inventions of the extractor, ejector, firing pin, cycling and locking bolt, and then of the automatic cycling methods- recoil locks, blow-back locks, gas operations of various methods) and there's not even any real way to compare things, because the katana just isn't on the required level.

[modi123_1]

Seriously dude.. this was a six month dead topic.. let it go.

[macosxnerd101]

333OnlyHalfEvil, on 5 May, 2009 - 03:59 AM, said:

I think gun control is stupid. The people who are going to do the shootings are going to get the guns one way or another. All gun control does is weaken everyone else in terms of putting up a potential defense.

Agreed. If everyone had guns AND (here's the clincher *gasps in anticipation*) the training to actually use them safely, then you'd have a lot less of those nutcases. In reality, is it smart to start shooting up a place if you know that you are outnumbered by people w/guns 5 to 1, 10 to 1, and even better odds. Well even if they are stupid enough to try, they aren't going to last long.