don't you think it a little distasteful to make a joke of this....?

The lax gun laws in this country are absolutely disgusting, and even worse is the cowardice of the politicians and media who won't come out and say what needs to be said: that a year and a half ago a US congresswoman was shot in the head, and if our government had only had the balls to say, "We can stop this with tighter regulation of these weapons," this could have been prevented. It makes me sick that so many Americans don't acknowledge that the availability of guns is such an enormous part of the problem. Other countries have tried tighter gun regulation and it has worked very well for them.

Gun control isn't the popular stance, but it is a needed one. People didn't want to change their lightbulbs, either, but the government said, NO, we have better lightbulbs now and those are the ones you'll use. They need to do the same with guns.

violent crime rates went up in england after they passed the gun ban.

and in places that have been loosening their gun laws in the US have had a steady decline in crime rate.

crime went way up in DC when they passed their gun ban, and after Washington DC vs Heller case, crime went down in DC.

Lots of things changed after 1996 (as someone said, immigration and the rapid growth of inner city areas associated with that), so violent crime was expected to increase- nothing to do with gun laws

tell that to these people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT2WeQRMQFY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygZWSUXr8rA&feature=related

If I ever meet those people, I will gladly tell them that guns make shit worse. Obviously the guy in the first vid wouldn't have needed a gun if the other two guys didn't have guns.

hitler, stalin, and Mao agreed with you guys.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." - Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria.

tell me how a law abidding citizen owning a gun would make things worse for that women and her parents.

had texas not had in place their terranical laws back then, her parents would be alive today.

only one guy had a gun, the other a bat. and you are telling me if criminals stormed the store with, bat, night sticks, and knives, that guys gun wouldnt have been needed. tell that to the hundreds, thousands of people that are victims of crimes like this, where the criminal had no guns in the vast majority of the cases. tell that to victims of home invasions, that get bruttaly raped, tied down with their children and burnt to death. tell those people that a gun wouldnt have helped since the criminals had no gun.

"Of course, when you talk about guns, you always hear a lot about the Second Amendment and the Founding Fathers, and what they would say if they were here. [...] And yes, the Founding Fathers wanted you to have the right to bear arms, but the guys who wrote that would pee through all eight layers of their pants if they saw what guns are now. In 1787, shooting a bullet was slightly faster than throwing one. If you wanted to be bullet-proof in 1787, you put on a heavy coat. So with that in mind, I'm all about Americans having guns, as long as they're the muskets from 1787 that take forever to load."
- Seth Meyers, Weekend Update

Quoting people is fun!

neither, but unfortunately criminals dont follow the law. guns bans mean nothing to them, other than "this is a safe place to do crime".

just look at the places in the US with the highest gun control, they usuall also have some of the highest crime to. many times the criminal use a gun.... wait for it.... illegally!! thats right the criminal illegally obtains the weapon and kills people. with the law abiding citizens being completely defensless