12 People Shot at Mother's Day Parade in New Orleans.

[Final-Fan]

Rpruett said:

Why is it completely ridiculous?  I didn't eat my dinner with a knife.  I hardly ever need a knife to eat dinner with.  Knives exist primarily to cut into things that's about it and most people who 'carry knives'  don't carry them just incase they need one for their dinner.

The current gun control 'debate' isn't just about having better oversight of gun sales.  It's absolutely about the government having more control over gun ownership.  That's precisely the point.    You have a belief that the government doesn't do any wrong and would never have ulterior motives which would be completely mis-guided and wrong and there are countless examples of this.

Nobody rational believes that gun laws passed today will necessarily equate to some governmental take over, tomorrow.  They believe in a very rational manner that the government cannot stop itself from trying to obtain more and more power and more and more control from a willing populace. The government is great at using (either advertently or inadvertently)  tragic situations as great platforms for pushing their agenda even when it completely tramples the rights of citizens.   Lastly,  people believe that gun control (much like 'Drug control' or the War on drugs) is an abysmal failure and there is evidence to suggest that gun control isn't the answer.  (Chicago anyone?)

They believe (correctly, I might add) that the reason for the 'Right to Bear Arms'  is soley in the constitution of this country to prevent governmental tyranny and for personal defense.   (And please don't say something like living in fear of your government is out-dated or impossible.)

The problem is self responsibility.  Stop blaming inanimate objects and start blaming the people committing the acts.   

People carry knives in case they want to cut or saw things.  But that doesn't necessarily mean "living things" as is the case with a gun and shooting things other than for target practice.  When I take a knife to work it's to cut open boxes, not people.  Basically, you've totally failed to support your claim that knives "exist primarily for murder", nor have you shown that guns don't. 

In your post above I've bolded baseless and false speculation about me.  However, I do believe that "the government" isn't a monolithic entity:  legislators who pass laws, for instance, aren't the same people and don't have the same agendas as the various executive branch agencies tasked with enforcing those laws. 

As for your argument that the government inevitably grasps for ever more power, it's not directly relevant.  Sure, if that is the case (and I believe it's closer to true than false) then we must be vigilant to make sure the government does not get power it shouldn't have, but that doesn't mean that the gun legislation recently proposed is such power.  The slope, if there be a slope, is not so slippery that we must stand in the way of reasonable laws now to prevent unreasonable laws in the future. 

How do universal background checks and more accurately tracking the sales of guns, perhaps for the purpose of cracking down on the 1% of sellers who are reportedly responsible for 50% of guns used criminally, "completely trample on the rights of citizens", and why do you believe it will "abysmally fail" to help against gun violence? 

I don't believe I ever said that gun violence was the fault of the guns and not the people shooting them; but guns are simply better for killing which is why people use them.  Therefore, making them harder to obtain for criminals would have the result of making it harder for them to kill.  I would be interested in hearing your argument that that is not a true statement, if such is your position. 

You are also incorrect if you believe the American people are against more gun regulation/control than currently exists.  See some poll results here.