19th April 2007, 7:14 PM
Quote:Would some criminals still have guns? Of course. But if handguns were illegal, everywhere in the country, like is true in many other first-world nations, while some criminals would still have guns, many fewer would. When it's harder to get something, and the things are confiscated when they are found, the number of guns available for violence would go down! It's such a simple fact... it's like with drugs, in a way: make drugs legal and more people would do them.
It's interesting that you bring up drugs, because making them illegal has not stemmed drug use. We have just as many problems with illicit drugs as we always have (even slightly worse). And if the gun control laws do not demonstrate evidence to lowering violent confrontations, why just say, "Oh, well we'll do it anyway, because that just makes sense"?
Quote:If guns were harder to access, there would be less gun violence. Sure, there would probably more stabbings and such, but attacks such as those are much less likely to cause high death tolls like gun violence can...
Many things in life are counter-intuitive. Consider this: if you gather 50 or so random people, the laws of chance tell you that you'll get at least one person who has a birthday in each of the twelve months, right? Actually, as any statistician or mathematician will tell you, there's a much greater chance that you won't. I know this must sound slightly like rationalization for what you consider craziness or naivety, but I'm just trying to point out that you can't always rely on intuition.