Do you think it is normal having firearms?

[Grey Acumen]

mrstickball said:
http://www.guncite.com/gcdgklec.html

Feel free to read the survey about Defensive Gun Uses.

It's no less than 70,000 uses per year.

and I can't say for certain, but I'm willing to bet that doesn't even cover the incidents that are completely prevented from ever cropping up in the first place. If someone was planning on doing something stupid, but then thought better of it because he knew people were armed, there's no way to track those type of incidents.

Entroper said:
On the topic of training, I would be absolutely in favor of requiring everyone to pass a firearms safety course before being allowed to own a firearm. We do it for driving machines (and I think driver's ed should be much more rigorous than it is), why not do it for killing machines?

And I totally agree on this, but even take it one step further, is that people should be required to attend these courses regularly, not just on safety, but on proper gun maintainence, and also accuracy and speed, and even judgement training. For all these people complaining about more guns = more violence, has anyone ever considered that it's purely a matter of when guns > amount being TAUGHT about guns = more violence. Of course JUST making guns available to all is going to see an increase in crime with guns, but general restrictions on buying and owning aren't the way to bring that back down.

I can name a far bigger cause of murder and violence than any gun or any weapon alone has ever caused, and it's called ignorance. You can't prevent violence by creating more ignorance, and that's all that restricting guns does, is create ignorance of those guns. You need to teach people, everyone, how to use them properly, that is the only way to make guns as safe as possible.

There will still be incidents where people get shot, by accident or temporary fits of rage, but provided we follow the sources of those incidents and not use gun possession as a scapegoat, we may eventually bring enough attention and negative press on the REAL issues that people will be compelled to seek counseling for these matters when they see themselves being driven to this point.