I've read parts of this thread and haven't done much posting here for a while, but I'll jump in on the gun debate because, well, who hasn't in our country. You're argument of the knife and bat are irrelivant. It isn't about the item at hand, it is about how it is used. If you use something as a weapon to kill someone it really doesn't matter what it is, what matters is the fact someone is dead. Guns are a part of society for many reasons, whether it be hunting, protection, recreational shooting, law enforcment, etc. If you have the premise that you are going to keep weapons out of hardened criminals hands, or those with motives to kill people, you live in a fairy tale land. If they can't buy the gun they'll find a way to build it, if they can't find those parts they will build a bomb or something else to carry out whatever sick agenda they have. It seems statistics matter so much in this argument but of the hundreds of millions of guns in this nation, how many are actually used to kill people, or in any type of crime for that matter? Just like how many knives and bats were used to kill people? A small percentage, and it isn't the primary use for the item.
I own 10 guns of different sorts. I hunt with them, target shoot with them, and have a concealed weapons permit and have one on me for protection. These are sick instances with sick individuals in every one of the shootings that have taken place, but the people who will obey the gun laws if instituted are the same people who aren't using their guns now to go carry out such sick murder sprees. It all starts with little things. It's easy to say you want to ban a magazine that holds more than 6 bullets, but I could have several magazines and shoot as many rounds as if I had a magazine that held 20-30 rounds. That's what bothers me. The laws make sense to someone who is scared of a gun, but limiting magazines and "ridding" the country of assault style weapons is the first step down a slippery slope and accomplishes nothing but getting closer to the end goal of an all out ban on guns. I've watched it in the hunting world over a period of a few years. In California they ban cougar hunting with dogs, then a year later ban cougar hunting all together. Then they ban hunting with dogs all together. Left or right their is an agenda to slowly creep towards their goals. Both sides are corrupt and use what they can to support their side. The state of Utah's legislature is so corrupt on little things I can't imagine how corrupt this coutnry is on a national scale and the level of bullcrap from both sides that is fed through news streams and media sources. I'm fine with making sure weapons don't fall into some bozos hands, but the legislation being thought up has no traction in anything other than moving closer to an all out ban on guns. Little steps aren't going to make a difference, limiting magazines aren't going to change it, banning assault weapons isn't going to change it.
