^^^ Fact

Sorry, but you can't look at a knife wound and say "Oh, well, this was cause by a (insert brand here) knife, and it matches the knife wounds caused in these other victims. people can match up bullets to victims which makes for definitive evidence in passing sentence on crimes. There's also the fact that guns leave DEFNITE traces when someone has just used them. guns are LOUD. Even with earplugs it'll still leave your ears ringing to fire them, just pulling one out and unloading is going to leave you nearly deaf for a while not to mention alreting EVERYONE in the nearby area that something is up, and the gunpowder leaves a VERY distinct taste in the air as well.

to a certain extent, they can make guesses if you have a string of identical knife wounds, but usually only because knives are so rarely used in favor of guns, if you had more knives being used, it'd all just look the same.

It sorta makes me wonder, really. How many violent crimes are there that aren't gun related that simply are overlooked because no crime can be proven? I mean, people cut themselves on things, fall down and hit their head off of a wall or a door. when you have knife wounds and basic blunt trauma, there's really not that much difference, some people might not report it, some people might credit these incidents to self inflicted or accidental injuries. A bullet wound is highly identifiable though, and you don't just bump against wall and suddenly there's a bullet in your shoulder, someone had to have fired a gun in order ot put it there, so pretty much every incidence in which a gun is used is going to be identified, while other violent crimes are much mroe easily overlooked.

It's not been working as well in Europe as people might think.  Some police in the UK are now carrying firearms due to the rise in firearm use among criminals.

The firearm genie is out of the bottle.  No one can put it back in the bottle via legislation without worldwide martial law, and even then there would still be quite a few who would have guns.  Good luck trying to un-invent the firearm.

Really?  I'm pretty sure that anyone, who would actually kill another person, is not going to stop and say "Hey I really want to kill this person, but all I have is this knife.  Oh well, guess I won't because it's not efficient enough."  

There are a lot of problems in the USA, but guns really aren't one of them.  There are major cultural issues causing the problems and people simply want a scapegoat for them.  The nature of guns just make them an easy target.

lol @ Americans who still denies firearms to be a problem for them. It's simply incredible how blind humans can be.

Well it's a good thing we have someone with your amazing divine wisdom to help us all see. I'm sure you can easily state that the real problem Americans have is firearms, and there is no underlying issues causing people to actually use them to kill other people. Nope there couldn't be any other reasons. Glad you were here to figure this out for us.

You do realize that throughout the history of the USA most of the population posessed guns right? The murder rate is a current issue that didn't exist before, even though the guns were still there. But yeah the guns are the problem, couldn't be anything else. The one thing that has remained constant is causing the problem that's occurring now, but it wasn't before. Guns just decided "hey it's about time to start causing some murders." Nope nothing else could be the issue. Let's just pin our problems on guns and ignore all the social and cultural issues because if we ignore them they'll just go away.

I'm not going to argue with you. I've been into waaaaay to many arguements, with Americans who will never change their minds, nomatter how much the truth stares them in the face. It's a total waste of time, and something I've learned not to do. If you want a comment on the subject, I refer to my previous post.

 lol, the irony

There's a respectable way to argue against guns; hibikir's posts are good examples of this.  Yours are not.

I am generally in favor of less gun control, but I cannot disagree with hibikir on this point. The availability of guns, in many cases, leads to more crime and more deaths.

Say I want to kill someone. I'm 5'7", used to be 130 lbs (nevermind how much I weigh now, dammit). I have a knife. The guy I want to kill is 6'5" and weighs 250 lbs. If I bring a knife and engage this guy in a fight, there's a pretty decent chance, even if I manage to surprise him and stab him in the back or something, that he'll be able to overpower me. He might even disarm me and kill me with my own knife! Now, on the other hand, if I have a gun, I can just shoot him in the face. He's dead. Very little chance of something going wrong and me ending up dead instead. I don't know about you, but that would definitely make me think twice before killing someone if I didn't have access to a gun.

It's not just murders, either.  I'd be more likely to rob a place if I had access to a gun.  If you pull out a gun in a public place, and no one else has one, you can instantly threaten the lives of everyone in the room.  You can't do the same thing with a knife -- everyone will just run out the door, because you can't kill them before they escape.  One of them will grab his cell phone on his way out and call 911, and now you're screwed.  You have much more control of a situation with a gun than you do with a knife.

Still, I think guns aren't the problem.  The problem is that too many people have reason to commit crimes.  We need to work on that, and in the meantime, let me carry a gun so I can protect myself against those people.

I'm surprised no one has really discussed the implications of gun ownership as a means of defense against a tyrranical government or an invading force.