Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

Me too. But it won't end soon.

Currently every shooting in every city is a candidate for promotion to a national media campaign that is focused on gaining additional restrictions on firearms, especially at the federal level (but also state level: Colorado is at this moment passing new highly-restrictive state firearms laws).

Every opportunity to alarm the citizenry about firearms, every chance to get parents' blood-pressure up with false or real reports of gunmen afoot will be invoked by the media. It's both good for their business and it's good for their political agenda.

In essence, this is an orchestrated attempt to use the Newtown shootings and the subsequent heightened public sensitivity as leverage to advance a long-present liberal goal to register and confiscate all firearms.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

How many people need to die before people everywhere realize that giving too much power to governments is not a good idea?

I grew up around guns. I was a pretty good shot -- expert with the M16, M60.

But I own no guns now. I never will.

I simply don't understand how someone can feel safer around a loaded gun. It's a fallacy to think that because you've gone through training, or that you go to the range, or whatever, that you are better equipped to handle a weapon; it's akin to claiming that you are safer walking around with a lit stick of dynamite -- just because you have done it a lot.

Which leads to why I felt so much safer in Germany. It wasn't the idea that criminals didn't have guns, it was that every empty-headed fool didn't have one. The real problem is that I am subjected to every fool's second-ammendment rights. It's not just that they can blow their own head off with their foolishness, but that me and my family are also endangered by them.

Although they may be our family, friends and neighbors; although they may be good people; they endanger us through their "rights." I would much rather live in the "danger" of a place where only criminals, police and soldiers carry weapons than to live in the "safety" of a place where any fool with a pinch of paranoia who has watched too many action-adventure apocalyptic movies can play soldier.

In the UK, yes we really believe this.

You have a culture problem, not a people problem. A culture whereby you are so fearful of violence that you have to carry a gun on your person every day is a broken one.

Why not make getting a gun as hard as getting an abortion? Mandatory waiting period, show photos of gun violence, require that a professional explain the horrors of gun violence etc?

:-P

    And does anyone really believe that criminals follow laws?

    If guns didn't exist and everything else were the same and these evil people 
    still had intent to do harm do you really believe that they would just give 
    up because they had no other way to harm people?

The problem America has is not one gun control will solve, the problem America has is that guns are a part of American culture and the country is so saturated with guns that making them illegal will not make any difference to availability to anyone. Arguing that gun control is wrong for America seems fair but arguing that gun control is always wrong and that people will kill regardless of gun availability doesn't match reality.

By giving guns away to everyone, you actually force criminals to carry weapons. You encourage them to shoot house owners on sight, because if they do not they might be shot themselves.

I do not have a gun license and i don't need a gun. Guns kill people, and nobody wants that.

Ponder that then ponder your decision to walk around in a developed civilized nation with a firearm.

Also ponder the externalities you impose on innocent bystanders: the risk of accidental discharge, the risk of missing a target and hitting a bystander, the risk of unnecessarily escalating a nonviolent situation into a violent one, the risk of drawing fire in you and your family's direction, the risk of having to hesitate between running and shooting, etc etc.

Ponder further: do you wear body armor? Wouldn't that make you safer? Why don't you go outside without full body armor?

No. This so-called Sandy Hook father IS NOT a Sandy Hook father, and his daughter WAS NOT at Sandy Hook the day of the shooting, as documented many times by himself, and described in more detail in this Slate article:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/02/07/bill_steve...

So maybe you should start by getting your facts straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_gun

I think the main issue with it is related to the constitution. While the idea as far as I understand, was for citizens to bear arms and form a militia to protect against a foreign power, many of the people that defend the right to bear arms do so based on a limited knowledge of it (i.e.: 'The right to bear arms is in the constitution' but have no idea what comes next). So you have the lobbies, and supporting those lobbies you have 'ignorant' people defending their 'rights' on this issue.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to try and do something about it.

I appreciate the point you make about your own country - that those with guns are either criminals or the well-connected.

And please don't buy into the idea that the "guns lobby" is the reason for America's liberal gun-ownership laws. The estimates are that there are over 300,000,000 guns in private hands in the USA. Gun owners are very very serious about their rights to own firearms. The NRA is just an expression of that zeal.

The poor latency of police response means that rampage killers(or anybody bent on harming anybody, really) can get away with killing several unarmed civilians before they can be stopped.

In theory, concealed carry individuals can put a stop to the rampage or at least keep the killer busy until the police arrive. You can google news stories about concealed arm carriers defending themselves. So it does works.

As for your second question, the difficultly of obtaining a gun in the US varies largely by state. However, it generally is not exceedingly difficult. As an example, here is how purchasing a firearm works in California:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California#Firearm_...

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

-Thomas Jefferson

You can't fight tyranny in government with metallic forks and gas cylinders.

As for the metal fork on an airplane restriction, please don't ask anyone to try to explain the TSA's rationale (for that and most of their other policies).

Those who wish the State to have a monopoly of violence point to mass-shootings and homicides as their examples. (From Columbine, to Chicago, to Newtown)

Those who wish to maintain the historical balance of violence point to egregious abuses of power by the entities of the State. (From the Ludlow Massacre, to Kent State, to Rodney King, Oscar Grant in San Francisco, and Robbie Tolan here in my city, to name a very few such incidents.)

So, to understand the reason why so many people feel the need to have guns, you have to understand that a large cultural trend in the U.S. is to be wary of actors of the State, and to be cautious of the level of power given solely to them. It's not about gun lobbies - gun lobbies are often more about the commercial side of guns, who can sell them, what can be sold, where can they be sold, how, etc.

It's important to not dismiss either side's position fully in the conversation - for if one cannot form an understanding in the mind of what the other party bases their beliefs on, you'll hit brick walls with each other nearly instantly.

Those who wish to relegate the power of violence fully to the State do rightfully fear other citizens' intentions, do rightfully believe that there is a possibility of a peaceful society where no citizen is armed.

Those who wish to maintain a balance of violence do rightfully fear the creation of separate classes of citizens who are given greater power than the average citizen to resolve conflict to their desire. They do rightfully believe that their analysis of history shows that monopolies of violence tend to result in forceful application of will from those classes to the common man.

There are outliers in both groups, there are those among the Statists that would happily create violence to show why people should not have guns (e.g. Christopher Dorner), and there are those among the Libertarians who would give up many rights to satisfy a sense of peace.

As for a particularly interesting read from someone who supports a balance of power, and their justification of it, check out: http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-...

As for how easy it is to get a gun? It depends on what state you live in, and what your background looks like. In my state, with a clean criminal record, and a perfectly reasonable behavior, you can typically walk in with money and out with a pistol or rifle in about 30 minutes.

As far as acquiring a gun, it is not as simple as many fictional portrayals. Most of the time you will go to a gun shop and pick out a gun and then you'll have to fill out paperwork and the gun store will do a federal background check on you to make sure you are legally allowed to own a firearm. Depending on the type of gun you purchase and the state you live in there may be a waiting period before you can take ownership of your gun.

As far as the ridiculousness of the TSA's rules, those are non-sensical and should not be used to inform other law making.

    I mean this just doesn't add up. There's some reason you have police, military, para-military and federal agencies so that citizens don't have to handle this aspect of security.

The authors of the amendment meant it as just another part of the balance of power.

First, the laws around buying and selling guns are set by each of the 50 States. In some States it is easy to buy a gun and in other States it is very difficult. Movies and television tend to exaggerate the availability and legality of weapons. A lot of television shows are set in places like New York City or California where buying firearms is difficult, restricted, and can take weeks.

Second, while some places (like urban cities) have police close by, the low density sprawl of most American cities means it will commonly take 10+ minutes for police to arrive, at which point they are mostly just filling out a report. While it might be possible in theory to hire enough police to reduce response times, it would not be cost effective since crime rates are quite low in much of the US. Consequently, there is an understanding in many areas that even if you call the police you will be on your own for a while. If most American cities were more densely packed, like European cities, police would be more effective at responding immediately.

Lastly, the US is a big and populous country with many different regions and cultures. In some parts of the US, guns are just a tool and ubiquitous enough that they are treated like any other dangerous tool. In some places like San Francisco, guns are treated as some kind of magical evil amulet because few people have seen or handled one and get most of their pre-conceptions from the media. In many other parts of the country, say Idaho, owning a gun is sort of like owning a chainsaw -- dangerous but with few social or personal implications.

You assume that there _was_ a man and that he had a firearm. Both are likely to be false, especially the latter.

"There's some reason you have police, military, para-military and federal agencies so that citizens don't have to handle this aspect of security."

No, the police cannot protect the citizen from crime but they can report and investigate crime. Occasionally the police intercept a crime-in-progress. But their intervention is optional: officers may pass by a crime in progress during shift change; otherwise they'll be writing an offense report for hours. Old saying: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

Also courts have consistently held that police are not required to protect someone. So people in the USA are in general allowed to protect themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

"is it as easy and as simple to get a gun in USA as it's projected in films or in the media? "

It was once much easier: IIRC in the "Death Wish" movie series, Charles Bronson's character obtains his firearms via mail-order. Today it's a more involved process:

TO PURCHASE A FIREARM FROM AN FFL DEALER:

The buyer must complete and sign a "4473 form" verifying his fitness to own a firearm (to lie is a crime). The buyer must provide identification information (e.g., driver's license). The dealer phones the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). NICS is given the buyer information plus the fact that the purchase is either a long gun or a handgun (no firearm serial numbers, etc. are given to NICS). NICS does a background check and either allows or disallows the sale. The buyer pays the dealer and is given the firearm. Afterward, in a separate "bound-book", the dealer records the 4473 info along with the firearms' identifying information. The 4473 forms and the bound-book are kept forever and, if the dealer goes out of business, those records are given to the government.

http://www.atf.gov/applications/e4473/

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/atf-f-4473.html

So to form a registry of all purchased firearms in the USA would require linking the NICS information (which legally is mandated to be destroyed after a short period of time) with the 4473 information. Federal gun control laws have driven relentlessly toward that goal (combined NICS + 4473 = firearms registration) all the while saying that a firearms registry is fantasy. But there's more...

TO PURCHASE A FIREARM FROM AN INDIVIDUAL:

The buyer must provide proof to the seller that he may legally purchase a firearm in that state. This varies from state to state but usually consists of the buyer showing a driver's license from that state and then stating that he may legally own a firearm (essentially the questions on the 4473 form must be accounted for). To lie is a crime. No NICS check is performed and no records need be kept.

This latter transaction is often termed the "Gun Show Loophole" although it can occur anywhere (no gun show is required). It is a private firearms transfer between private individuals: not dealer to customer, or customer to dealer. It is termed a "loophole" by anti-gunners because it prevents tracing firearms' with the combined NICS + 4473 information: it would render a firearms registry at least partially incomplete.

So today we are two steps away from full firearms registration:

- eliminate private firearms transfers between private individuals,

- allow the government to collect and keep forever all NICS and 4473 information.

PROBLEMS

- It is unknown whether the (passed) NICS check information is discarded after 24 hours as is mandated by law (a failed NICS check is kept longer for investigation since it indicates a crime may has been committed). One who was thorough would inquire as to the logging and backup systems used by NICS. Worst case: ATF has all NICS check data in a database.

- 4473 form information may be destroyed after 20 years. However the dealer's bound-book must be given to a business' new owner or handed over to the ATF when the business closes. Worst case: ATF has lots of 4473 information in a database.

- There have apparently been instances where the ATF scanned (illegally) dealers' 4473 forms en masse during audits.

- Worst case overall: ATF (illegally) has a combined NICS + 4473 database which is a partial registry of legally-purchased firearms in the USA.

If it is a stunt, 'intuitive' is the last way I would describe it.