Just proves the point, that the argument that we need our weapons to prevent this scenario doesn't wash.
Another definition of gun control is being able to hit what you are aiming at. Before the invention of black powder, people used clubs, rocks, spears and knives to kill their neighbors. It's people that kill and a gun, like a spear, is only the vehicle to finalize the act.
This is one of those things that is certainly true on its face, along with auto accidents, plane crashes and many other things. But a gun is a precision machine, made by man, and designed to kill. Aside from insecticides and the like, there are few things found around the home that you can say that about, and guns are seldom used to kill insects. Gun sales would drop precipitiously if they were designed in a way that was "guaranteed not to kill" anyone you shoot with it. It's the capacity to kill that creates the demand, making the argument that "people kill" as bogus as all the others that are put forward in defense of gun ownership that are not based on the unique laws of the U.S.
V. in it's day, a spear was a precision tool also designed by men to kill. Why would any caveman buy a spear that would not kill animals or hostile tribesmen? I guess I am at a loss on your explanation. Spears were the beginning and guns are a progression...nothing has really changed.
Thanks for injecting a little humor into this discussion, Beauty. I guess the point is that we're still just basically cave men, but better equipped cavemen! I can live with the state of things in the U.S., and gun lovers can rejoice that there is at least one country where they can, without any practical limits, own most types of guns, thanks to the Second Amendment.
CBS News) Let's start with a few facts about guns and shootings and deaths. Lately, there have been far too many shootings of innocent people by crazy people. We can go back to Virginia Tech or Tucson, Ariz., or look just recently to Aurora, Colo., and to Wisconsin and the Sikh Temple. Too many crazy, homicidal people have lethal weapons. And you might say there should be very strict gun control - and for crazy people, there should be. On the other hand, you might look at this little set of facts. In Sandpoint, North Idaho, where I live for most of the summer, it's extremely easy to buy a gun. You can buy them at stores and at gun shows, or just at yard sales. Yet there are almost no gun deaths in Bonner County, Idaho. The last ones of note in North Idaho were done by the FBI at Ruby Ridge, and that's a different story. On the other hand, in my beloved Los Angeles, where I live most of the year, there's extremely strict gun control. It's a real project to buy a gun. Here, we have gang shootings and death by guns on a terrifying scale. In my native city of Washington, D.C., the same goes: Strict gun control and lots of shootings. The same goes for Chicago. Strict gun control and a lot of killing. Obviously, Sandpoint, Idaho, is a very much calmer place than Chicago, and I'm not saying that people in Chicago should be allowed to just tote guns in their cars the way many can, and do, in North Idaho. But my point is that there is nothing easy or simple about the relationship between gun control and crime. If a man had started shooting in a crowd in North Idaho, probably several men in the crowd would have shot him down immediately. Maybe a woman, too. I'm not for vigilante law enforcement. But I am also not for government disarming everyone but criminals. I have never understood the flaw in the argument that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. And, of course, there are already laws against murder. The whole problem of guns and killings is complex, and saying "gun control," or being angry at the NRA simply does not get us very far. I wish I had a better solution, but I don't, and as far as I know neither does anyone else. BY BEN STEIN ON CBS NETWORK
Interesting comment, in light of the point he is trying to make, V8. Would the author expect anything else? The author points to the very large cities of Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C., and comments that there are large numbers of gun deaths in those cities. With their demographics, would he expect anything else? He's right, but this, too, is not going to get him any recognition from the Nobel Prize Committees. Ben Stein is charming, and I enjoy seeing him on TV, and in the movies; but, he hasn't got much to say on this issue, just an enjoyable way to say it. ____________________
I have lived in many countries though admittedly not the US - but reading posts of how you get used to shootings and numb to their effect does not have me racing to move there! Coming from a city in the UK where gun crime is very very unusual (Brighton for all of you racing to google news to prove me wrong) ............shootings of this kind in Cancun do worry me. I dont lie awake at night but I am so much more aware of my surroundings here than anywhere I have lived. The news this week of a nine year old boy entering school with a gun in his bag , which led to a huge arms discovery in his parents house does leave me feeling uneasy .Maybe I am just a small city girl but violence anywhere in the world has an effect on me and when its on Nader ,where we all frequent, it makes me sit up and notice !!!
TraceyUK, Dont let V. scare you out of the US, there are no bullet craters in any building that I have ever seen not even in MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL! Never even have I heard a gun shot out my door, except at duck hunting season. So its not all hes got it cranked up to be. I dont own a gun either V, just dont see a need, unless someone comes collecting then I will find one.
I grew up around guns in the midwest...I got my first .22 rifle when I was 5. I think when you are raised around them and are taught to respect guns and see what they are capable of doing, then you think about guns very differently. I grew up looking at them as more of a tool than a weapon and never as a toy. We have had people break into our place here while we were asleep in the house...this would never happen where I am from, because it is just assumed everyone has a gun in their house and will use it on whoever breaks in. If it were legal here in Mexico, I would have several guns in my house. When stored properly and handled properly guns are no more likely to kill someone than a big stick. Personally, I feel much more safe whenever I have a gun than when I don't have one. I do NOT feel that safe when I see security guards and cops with guns here...it is quite obvious that the majority are not very familiar with or trained very well in handling a firearm. This makes me more nervous than anything about guns...improper or no training at all.
