If my understanding is correct (I've never looked it up), Washington DC is even worse than Chicago; more restrictive gun laws along with more per capita gun fatalities.

On the issue of gun possession correlating well with gun violence, Switzerland is the classic example:

"… where almost every adult male is legally required to possess a gun. One of the few nations with a higher per capita rate of gun ownership than the United States, Switzerland has virtually no gun crime."

http://www.guncite.com/swissgun-kopel.html

The "almost" refers to membership in the militia but that does include nearly every adult male within the age-span of our favorite perpetrators here. The rest of the article - even the rest of the sentence - adds caveats but the bottom line is that it is culture, not gun ownership, that spawns outrageous use of firearms. In another culture, think "honor" killings of a female member of one's own family. No guns required; a knife will do nicely.

Wayne

At 08:23 PM 12/16/2012, Robert Hansen wrote:

On Dec 16, 2012, at 9:36 PM, Jeff Bishop <Jeff@Bishop.NET> wrote:

I agree with all of my dad's points, save one. Restrictions on nuclear weapons are, in my opinion, not infringements. For one thing, nukes are not weapons individuals can bear, so they are arguably not "arms" within the meaning of the Second Amendment.

I don't think explosives was ever a consideration though ammunition does require powder. In my opinion, arms obviously meant guns and has always meant guns.

People think this is new. Sadly, it isn't. In 1937 a monster every bit the equal to this one blew up an elementary school in Bath Michigan, killing 38 children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

In Japan and China they use knives.

If it isn't guns, bombs, knives or poison then these monsters just use their bare hands and strangle them, one at a time.

Obama spoke tonight...

"We can't accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage?" Obama said. That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year, after year, after year is somehow the price of our freedom?"

Yeah, unfortunately, this is the price we pay for freedom. We can't even keep gang members off the street. How the hell are we going to put enough "odd" people under surveillance just hoping to stop the rarest of sickos like this monster?

Considering the number of gun deaths in Illinois, I wasn't even aware they had a ban on guns. More people are murdered in Chicago, with guns, than troops dying in Afghanistan. A lot more. What kind of gun ban is that?

Just like education, if we want to understand how other countries achieve lower murder rates (there actually isn't that many of them) then go examine them to see how they achieve lower murder rates. I don't think it hinges on a lack of guns, though I could see the lack of interest in guns (in those countries) hinging on not being worried as much about being killed.

Bob Hansen