Huey Driver Loc: Texas

How do you anti-gun folks that think we need more gun laws explain Switzerland a country where all if not almost all adults are trained and issued a gun by the government and yet they have one of the lowest gun related crimes rates in the world?

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

Bruce with a Canon Loc: Islip

simple philosophy.
If citizens can shoot back, criminals are better behaved than when facing an unarmed flock of defenceless sheep.
You get a lot more respect with a kind word and a .45 acp than just a kind word.
While I have never had the need, out side the military, to level a firearm at a fellow human, I did have cause to rack a round in to the chamber of my 12 guage pump when some uninvited stranger broke in to my garage. Once he heard the action rack a round he froze and began what I can only describe as profuse sniveling that continued until the police fitted him in cuffs and hauled him away ( he got 3 year for breaking and entering) He could have fared worse.
And yes he was armed with a 25acp, and yes he had prior arrests.

Ho many more laws will prevent punks like this from comiting more crimes?

Danilo Loc: Las Vegas

I'll suggest we have PLENTY of laws for them to break as it is! And since these laws all work so well, I can understand people wanting MORE of them.

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

All need to contact they congressman before they vote an what you say here.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

It is very typical for gun lovers to take an exception to prove a general case. Your argument here is a perfect example. You seem to be implying that since the Swiss population has a very large number of guns and a low crime rate, the same formula will work everywhere. General conclusions are more correctly drawn from the entire available body of evidence, not from the one or two that present data favorable to your cause.

The number of guns in circulation is one, but not the only cause of a high murder rate. Violent crimes tend to be the domain of lower income groups, and Switzerland with a population of only six million has a generally high level of education and prosperity. Using the Swiss murder rate as you have, therefore, is akin to taking the murder rate of just one metropolitan area in the US, a prosperous one, and concluding that it has lessons applicable to the general population. The murder rate of very high income areas will never be as high as that of low income areas.

If you had been intellectually honest, instead of grabbing whatever you could to support your preconceived conclusion, you would have mentioned much data that militates against the conclusion toward which you are steering. In general, the countries with strict gun control laws have much lower murder rates. Britain has 2.1 per 100,000, and Japan .3 compared to 4.2 in the US.

The complexities of human situations allow for instances in which the presence of guns reduce crime, but that is not usually the case. It is analogous to seat belts, which can sometimes cause death by trapping a person inside a burning car, whereas more often than not, they prevent death by keeping people from being hurled through the windshield. So it is with guns. They were invented to kill and to maim more effectively than lesser weapons before them, and it is absolute sophistry to pretend the invention of guns has resulted in fewer deaths than we had before them, or that all other things being equal, an increase in gun ownership will lead to fewer deaths.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Yours is another gun lovers half baked argument. It deals with the problem through pure hypothesis. This is useful if facts are not available. The available facts, however, belie your hypothesis. In general, the more guns available to the population, the higher the murder rate, and the fewer guns available, the lower the murder rate. This holds true for nearly every country.

Your pretense that criminals will have guns as easily under strict gun control as they do now does not stand up to the scrutiny of facts, either. While it is not possible to eliminate guns entirely, nations committed to that policy have managed to a large extent to keep them out of the hands of both law abiding citizens and criminals. It is a matter of commitment to enforcement. The proof is in their drastically lower murder rates than ours.

Arguing that the ready availability of guns will reduce the murder rate is sophistry. It is like pretending that the more fossil fuels we burn, the less global warming will result. Guns were invented to kill and to maim more effectively and efficiently than lesser weapons before them, and the more guns that are around the more maiming and killing occurs.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

The laws don't work because of an enormous, well organized group of gun lovers, like you, who don't really want an effective gun reduction program. Countries that committed to gun reduction have, for the most part, kept them out of the hands of both law abiding citizens and criminals. The sole purpose of guns is to kill and to maim, and in general, the more guns that are around, the more killing and maiming occurs.

ted45 Loc: Delaware

The gun laws work just fine. The majority of intentional deaths by guns are committed by criminals or people who have gone over the mental cliff, to borrow a phrase.

We need to go back to basics and determine why the laws against murder and assualt don't work.

Croce Loc: Earth

Good morning Nagy. You make some very compelling points. Why however did you not continue on with your insightful stream of logic and lead us to the obvious solution to not only this gun mess but the American poverty problem as well? Your pure genius Mr. Nagy, is apparently and regretfully exceeded only by your parsimony. Why be stingy with the fruit of your genius. I am very disappointed in you for not stepping forward to assume a leadership role in implementing the oh so obvious solution your crystal clear logical presentation leads us to. Perhaps you are queezy and do not care to participate, but at least step forward and offer some sort of leadership. You Phillip Nagy could become a national hero. Just step forward and lead us where your logic leads us: Killing all those at or below the poverty line would not only deliver our nation into the hands of safety but out of the throes of poverty and make us one of the few if any countries without a national debt. How would you feel about a run for the Presidency?

WNC Ralf Loc: Candler NC, in the mountains!

My father was a police officer and in his experience owning a gun actually didn't seem to prevent any crimes, usually created crime. Most of his calls about home owners with guns was to fill out a burglary report on how many and what type of guns were stolen. He also had to arrest one owner when he shot a neighbor through the walls of his apartment, and more for the illegal discharge of a weapon. No one is even talking about taking all guns away, just the weapons designed to kill people. The best home defense weapon is a short barreled shot gun, little chane of shooting your wife or children when the bullet passes through walls. No civilian needs a weapon with a clip holding more than 10 rounds ............. But all you gun nuts can keep up the good work, loved the NRA response, and soon people will be so fed up you WILL lose gun rights, either way doesn't bother me.

ken grant

The only difference between a 20 round magazine(NOT CLIP) and two 10 round magazines is about 2 seconds. Some can change magazines even faster.

Same applies to 30 round magazines except time will change to about 4 seconds to complete magazine changes.

Robert Graybeal Loc: Myrtle Beach

We need a lot of things more than we need more gun laws.

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

I think the brainless lovers of guns who are happy to see people killed need to update these figures now following Decembers deaths alone

I hope these gun lovers never have a family member killed, or perhaps if enough are then the laws will change

Bangee5 Loc: Louisiana

You are saying that if there were no guns then there would be no more killing and maiming. Not with a gun but no less killing and maiming. No guns does not change anything. I would win a knife fight.

Farol Loc: Florida

You can fit Switzerland into a suburb of Des Moines. Much much easier to control citizens when everyone identified and monitored.