Oh, so we need more gun laws? Please tell me how criminals and the insane follow the law. Please?

[colfre]

I believe there were only 108 gun laws actually broken by that creep i Colorado, obviously you don't see the merit in adding a few hundred more laws so the criminals can break them also. Just kidding but you get my point. If you got a criminal an honest system will not work. We must be on our toes. Just like the creep in W Wa at that college, all the warning signs. Have a great 2012!

[caomh]

You waste your breath trying to reason with anti-gun zealots. Nothing -- not history, not facts, not common sense can penetrate their "brains," unless its fits their bias.

-In his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), the great English jurist, Sir William Blackstone, discussed "the principle absolute rights which appertain to every Englishman" under the English Bill of Rights of 1689, and observed, "[T]o vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense."

-Thomas Jefferson, "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776: ‘‘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."

-In the United States, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were adopted as a single unit on December 15, 1791, and which constitute a collection of mutually reinforcing guarantees of individual rights and of limitations on federal and state governments. Encyclopedia Britannica.

-D. C. v Heller, Supreme Court (2008): The Court concluded that the Second Amendment does establish an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and hunting.

-01/06 BBC: "If guns are outlawed," an American bumper sticker warns, "only outlaws will have guns." With gun crime in Britain soaring in the face of the strictest gun control laws of any democracy, the UK seems about to prove that warning prophetic.

-7/6/09, the Reports on Crime released by the European Commission and United Nations: In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677. America has a violent crime rate of around 466 per 100,000. Canada is around 935 shockingly enough. Both numbers are dwarfed by jolly old England’s jaw dropping 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens.

-Reasonmagazine: Last December, London's Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent. "Britons are chagrined by the findings of a U.S. Department of Justice study that says a person is nearly twice as likely to be robbed, assaulted or have a vehicle stolen in Britain as in the United States. The Trans-Atlantic cousins can take comfort in the fact that the United States remains far ahead of Britain in violent crimes, including murder and rape, although the gap is narrowing there as well."

-Even pacifists "got it": Mahatma Gandhi in his An Autobiography, pg 446: "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."

[ruelle]

It worked in australia, after the port Arthur massacre we had a massive change to gun laws and now guns are really not a part of mainstream Aussie life. It's a lot harder for a criminal or a messed up teenager to get their hands on a gun because they can't just break into someone's house or go to dads gun cupboard to find one.

[darik2]

they don't follow the law... but where do they get their guns?

they steal them... for the vast majority...

if guns were harder to get and less people had them... less guns stolen... and that's a reduction in the no. 1 source of guns for criminals...

believe it or not... Pakistan does not make daily deliveries of AKs to your hometown criminals...

[broehain61]

it is difficult to buy guns in many states. the premise that making purchases difficult to foil criminal intent fails in the light of obviously illegal drug purchases. it,s easier to buy "illegal" drugs than it is to buy a gun. no background check for drugs.

[artek57]

seeing as the gun laws would involve making obtaining a gun more difficult though better background checks as well as having more security in public places, i think it could help. of course your meme usage suggests you have no real intention in reading actual answers.

[hewlett]

2 seperate issues. I agree we need tougher gun laws, assault rifles need to be banned and confiscated from the civilian population. Gun owners are one source the criminals get their weapons from.

[gillian59]

Gun laws that restrict the use and sale of guns make it harder for would be criminals to obtain guns making it harder for such people to commit crimes with guns.

[dubh35]

Gun laws that restrict the use and sale of guns make it harder for would be criminals to obtain guns making it harder for such people to commit crimes with guns.

The Criminals will obviously turn in their guns. DUUR. Because Criminals obey the Law.

[zacchaeus21]

Gun laws won't help