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Makes sense.

And just as a matter of interest (not intending to troll or anything I promise) are there restrictions on what kind of guns ordinary (and by ordinary I mean non-police, non-military) US citizens can own?

Single shot, bolt action, semi-auto and revolver pistols and long arms are Title 1 weapons and no problem most anywhere under state law, and certainly are ok under federal law.

Federal law allows what we call Title 2 weapons if you fill out the proper forms, pass a background check, pay a $200 tax and if the states law permits them (most do.)

Title 2 (aka NFA) weapons are machine guns, sound suppressors (silencers), short barreled shotguns, short barreled rifles, destructive devices and "any other weapons" (aka AOW's)

A short barreled shotgun is any shotgun with a barrel of less than 18" or an overall length of less than 26". A short barreled rifle is a rifle with a barrel length of less than 16", or an overall length of less than 26".

A destructive device can be an explosive, incendiary or poison gas weapon like a bomb or grenade. It can also be a firearm with a bore over .50 caliber, with exceptions for sporting shotguns, drillings, black powder firearms etc.

AOW's include smooth bore pistols, any pistol with more than one grip, gadget guns (cane gun, pen gun) and shoulder fired weapons with both rifled and smooth bore barrels between 12" and 18". The latter excludes rifle/shotgun combo hunting guns of over 18".

The constitution guarantees you the right to own guns, not have them in public.

I think you are forgetting the "and bear" part of the second amendment. Owning guns is the "to keep" part, "and bear" means being able to carry them.

No, what they're saying is that the police shouldn't go in guns blazing in situations where it's not merited. I know this is a thought foreign to most gun nuts but people dying is bad.

1. stop trolling by using the term "gun nuts"

2. the police were, in their opinion, protecting the lives of themselves and others when they took the life of this one person. They had no way of knowing, for sure, that the weapon that this idiot pointed at them wasn't real.

Oh, and would you PLEASE learn to read? DocM stated repeatedly that the Uzi that his friend carries is semi-auto, meaning that it is absolutely NO DIFFERENT in terms of operation than any other 9mm pistol.

I think that Javik is forgetting one very important and relevant fact. England is quite a bit smaller than most states in the US (only slightly larger than Mississippi, which is 32nd in the US), with a higher population density than nearly any state here (only 4 US states have a higher population density: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey). Therefore, the likelihood of a police officer being nearby when trouble arises is much higher in England than in the US. People here have much more reason (and therefore the freedom) to defend themselves and others than in most other countries.

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Sorry for the extra post, but I couldn't edit my previous one anymore. There's one inconvenient fact that the anti-gun crowd (especially Europeans, but also those in the US) are either ignorant of or simply don't want to acknowledge: since legal gun ownership (especially concealed carry) has been on the rise, violent crime rates have gone down.

A little outdated, but this article sums it up nicely: http://www.realclear...ves_106057.html

A couple of other articles: http://finance.townh...ives/page/full/

http://winteryknight...es-crime-rates/

edit: and even better one: http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/understanding-how-concealed-carry-laws-saves-lives/

In 2006, about 11,600 homicides were committed by criminals armed with guns, claiming 68 percent of all homicides,? he says. Based on data from the National Criminal Victimization Survey (NCVS), as many as 500,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States in 2006 by offenders armed with guns, and around 26 percent of robberies and 7 percent of assaults were committed by gun-armed offenders.

These facts have led many people to conclude that America?s high rate of gun ownership must be at least partially responsible for the nation?s high rates of violence, or at least its high homicide rate, says Kleck, adding that this belief in a causal effect of gun levels on violent crime rates has, in turn, led many to conclude that limiting the availability of guns would substantially reduce violent crime, especially the murder rate.

?What?s not so widely known, though, is that large numbers of crime victims in America also use guns in the course of crimes (but) in self-defense,? says Kleck.

Based on 16 national surveys of samples of the U.S. population, he continues, the evidence indicates that guns are used by victims in self-protection more often than crimes are committed by offenders using guns. Victims used guns defensively two to two-and-a-half million times in 1993, for example, compared to about 850,000 crimes in which offenders possessed guns.

I never claimed that everyone abuses that power, but the problem is that for every person prepared to use that kind of power scrupulously I'd wager you'd find 2 that were not. And that is why I am opposed to it, not because I want to see innocent people being harmed, I just feel uneasy about people taking the law into their own hands. It's only a couple of steps away from anarchy.

Air rifles are great fun for practice shooting. I don't kill animals with them, but they're the right level for me. Fun but not too dangerous.

I would ask where you get your numbers?

I could also say I wager that 70% of married women who have a knife and are not in the kitchen are out to cut-off their husband's "stuff" like Lorena Bobbit did.

If you don't have facts to back it up, then it is nothing but conjecture with no basis in fact or reality.

I would ask where you get your numbers?

I could also say I wager that 70% of married women who have a knife and are not in the kitchen are out to cut-off their husband's "stuff" like Lorena Bobbit did.

If you don't have facts to back it up, then it is nothing but conjecture with no basis in fact or reality.

He has a definite skill in using hyperbole and trying to pass off anecdotal evidence as fact.

74% of all statistics are made up right? :D

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