Doesn't this speak volumes?

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I truly don't believe that ownership of firearms is the root of the problem.

Canada has approximately 1/3 the number of firearms per person as the United States. But when we compare deaths, our firearm homicide rate is 11% of the US, our firearms suicide rate is a little over one half and our unintentional firearms deaths are about 1/3.

Meanwhile, South Africa, with perhaps 15% of the gun ownership by population of the United States has fully ten times the firearms homicide rate.

If ownership of firearms was the issue, we would expect those numbers to more closely correlate with the ownership figures. Intuitively, this seems to be borne out by the unintentional death numbers--we are comparably clumsy to our American neighbors, and we face a number of unintentional firearms deaths comparable to our lower rate of firearms ownership.

There is some factor or factors, other than the fact of possession and the liberalism of ownership laws, that contributes to these variables. Truly, I don't know what it or they might be.

Personally, I would like to see firearms treated the way that we treat motor vehicles, with competency tests and licensing for ownership and use and registration to provide police with greater tools for investigation, and the means to detail a person found in possession of an unregistered firearm. But I see no justification for outright prohibitions.

Banning guns will ensure only people meaning to use them for illegal purposes will get them.

I think that if we need to blame it on something, the following link will explain:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceb ... n_subc.php

damn those maps

The map I posted has actual gunsights in them. Lists the names of the senators and says 'it is time to take a stand' and "17 more to go".

The one you put has dartboards, was made by a third party commentator and just says that democrats should target those states.

I have really come to hate Sarah Palin you know. She is a cold hearted self centred moron.

According to a friend who lives over in America, she gets lots of press coverage, but actual opinion polls show that people think little of her.

Why oh why, can the news not report things properly? It is the same over in the UK and a lot of other countries. Sickens me to think we call this a democracy.

The murderer seems to be a literal right-wing nut. He is right wing as what you would imply from what his youtube channel says: http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10 ... 8Wr6AeZTCE and he also seems rather insane.

It is a shame this tragedy happened.

People on the left are out of line bringing politics into this so prematurely. From recent videos on his youtube channel and various reports from people who knew him, it looks pretty compelling that Jerred Loughner is suffering from schizophrenia.

And he is a right-wing nut.

He was a left wing nut according to people that knew him. Fail.

His youtube videos are consistent with the writings of someone with paranoid schizophrenia.

Are you guys deliberately taking Sarah Palin out of context or are you just idiots.

She is referring to having people get voted out of office and you seem to take it as a hit list for assassinations. Get a clue, the guy was a nutcase and this had nothing to do with politics, this guy was apparently obsessed with the Representive from Arizona back in 2007.

Why does it matter whether the dude was left wing or right wing? He was plain insane, simple as that. Most people from either side wouldn't resort to what he did.

And yeah, Sarah Palin's obviously not talking about whacking em off. Wow, the lengths people go to just to smear someone lol.

I was just mentioning my thoughts on her as a "general comment"

Was not implying anything was directly related.

The democrats recently used a map with targets on it too for republicans they wanted to single out. Apparently when the democrats do it it's perfectly innocent, but when the republicans use it, then the Illuminati is behind it and the black helicopters start circling.

Wait hold on did you just use the word "Black"? OMFG RACIST, you're in on the vast right wing conspiracy aren't you? loooll yeah I also noticed that the crosshairs seem to conjure images of trigger happy gun nuts, even though it's actually hypocritical for a right winger who supports freedom of speech to want to kill someone for having an opposing view.

@ PatrickNeville: I was talking to Vexcalibur, not you. I don't know anything about Sarah Palin to say whether or not she's a b***h.

Wow, so it's coming down to crosshairs vs bulleyes, seems a little thin to me...

@ JB, AoS, Jacoby, excellent work on exposing the fallacies of gun control, I missed the significance of this thread due to the title, but it looks like business was being taken care of just the same. Especially good pull on the Japanese stabbings, those really flew under the radar as international news but are so relevant to discussing the efficacy of weapons prohibitions. On a related note, now I'm thinking I need to see if there were any mass shooting in Australia prior to the Port Aurthur killings,since I'm curious whether they really flushed their gun rights on one big incident (also involving the mentally ill, natch).