Who actually thinks a US gun ban would work?

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correlation does not imply causation

You can't really use tobacco to kill someone in a fit rage...

you can kill somebody with your bare hands in a fit of rage

don't give them any ideas

You can't use your bare hand to kill someone a 100 feet away.

It is much easier to "do something" about guns than it is to "do something" about blunt or sharp weapons, or bare hands.

It depends. "Imply" is an equivocal word.

Correlation does not prove causation.
Correlation does suggest causation.

In any case, I was responding to the other user's suggestion that murders rose as a result of the reaction to Dunblane.

Lack of correlation is good evidence against causation, which is actually what I'm arguing.

Most people other than regular shooters can barely hit the broad side of a barn at 100 ft.
I know this from experience.
Regular shooters very rarely are murderers.

No it doesn't. That's why it is considered a fallacy.

We are wandering around in the world of simplistic policy solutions.

Of course a gun ban won't work, because a gun ban won't legislate firearms out of existence. But that does not mean that there is not a place for other forms of regulation, to mitigate the issues of access to firearms by people who oughtn't to have them.

To my way of thinking, the most important effect of new thinking on regulating the acquisition and possession of firearms is the opportunity that it presents to start a change in public perception. At present, the debate is limited to two mutually exclusive, simplistic arguments: "guns protect us," and, "guns threaten us." There cannot be a dialogue when no one will come to the middle ground. And until people start to articulate that middle ground, there is no potential for cultural change.

I wasn't actually seriously suggesting that murders increased as a result of the handgun ban, I was raising it to point out that the handgun ban did not decrease the homicide rate...

I don't know why you mentioned the Telegraph. I'd linked to an official government publication...

Exactly! So should more incompetent people be owning guns? They can't even take driving as a serious responsibility!

A dozen panicked people shooting in the dark (like a movie theater) is not safety to me.

Exactly, and yet lots of tax dollars were and are spent on those efforts, to no avail. Lots of people have been imprisoned who were harming no one but themselves.

So what policy, exactly, would be the middle ground solution? Banning "assault" (such a vague term) weapons. The very weapons that would used by a police state if martial law was passed. I'll pass on that.

Prohibition was to keep people from harming themselves as it were.

A gun ban is to keep people from hurting others.

Very different. Both a symptom of how most upright mammals can't control themselves.

Educate yourself, and make sure you read the points people made.

The last user stated a correlation existed. I showed there wasn't. You said "correlation does not imply causation". That is not a valid criticism of my point, because I wasn't using correlation to show causation (unless you are referring to my comments about the strict approach towards knives reducing crime, in which case I apologise, that could be an example of correlation not implying causation- though more accurately post hoc ergo propter hoc, there's no correlation here).

Besides, it is not fallacious to say that correlation suggests causation. It is fallacious to say that correlation and causation have no link. Correlation does not prove causation, but it is a big hint.

Let's say less oranges are sold in markets as the murder rate increases.
Either the decline in oranges sales cause the murder rate to increase (because oranges are spiked with anti-violence chemicals by the government)
or the murder rate reduces orange sales (because people don't want to visit markets and instead buy from shops or online)
or they are both caused by a third variable (perhaps orange sellers see a life of crime as more exciting)
or the association is coincidental (markets aren't being used due to online retailing and home delivery, whilst crime skyrockets due to the war on drugs and increasing poverty).

In three of those four scenarios, there is a causal link. So whilst correlation is no proof of causation, it is a pretty big hint, particularly if there is no better explanation.

Still doesn't work. You can't control the minds of people.