The thing about both of their day after posts is that they counter points that I never tried to make.
Verms FBI data does show that "handguns" were used 3x or so more than "other types", but this insinuates that ANY non self defense deaths with "other guns" are acceptable - and they're not. This was an educational read, but doesn't address the problem that I had with it all - which is that they're too easy to obtain. And yes Verm, there's an entire black market here where people with clean records buy them and resell them in their communities after disassembling and modifying them - there is a shitload of money in it. Add in identity fraud and lax sales at outdoor gun shows and you have a thriving underground industy. Our gun laws vary from state to state and are even more fucked up than our tax codes. What I want to see is for them to make it incredibly difficult for someone that isn't an upstanding citizen with no criminal record to obtain them. I have no idea how that's invasive or unreasonable. I still don't understand why you need an AK-47 to stop a home invasion, and neither do a ton of law enforcement and soldiers that are speaking out on the matter, but hey I'm not a weapons expert. I'll still gladly retract the statement that you don't need an Ak-47 to defend your home. I guess if you live in some shithole trailer park or the ghetto then it's possible that six people are going to kick your door down and flood into your home, I've never seen it.
G-Fist spent the last 2 days on Google after claiming to be done arguing about it and came up with a newscast where they were "bought back" in an area because I suggested that, but I guess he didn't really watch the video because in that town if you didn't sell them you went to jail. That's not a buyback, that's confiscation with a smack on the ass. That's light years from my suggestion, which was that we can use money to buy them back from the *streets* ( which has been done here in the USA )...not take them from normal citizens involuntarily and then hand them checks and tell them to fuck off. It would be ( and apparently was ) asinine to do that.
There is a middle ground where we can protect our families and halt those that would come into our homes, but we have to get out of this reflexive mindset where no one is willing to work with the government on it to find that balance. The second you bring up regulation or control people paint images of Obama coming to your house with the police, taking your weapons and then not getting there on time the next day while your wife is getting gang raped. Nobody wants that.
I grew up in the country and was taught how to use rifles and shotguns at a really early age. I currently don't need one because I live alone on the 3rd floor of a very secure building by myself. When I have a family one day, I will probably get a shotgun so that if it's dark and I'm groggy I can just point and squeeze without sending a hot one thru the wall into my kids room or a neighbors face.
We have beaten the shit out of this topic, missed each others points, and developed rivalries in an online gaming guild when we should instead be focused on contributing to LoD and having a good time. I'm just as guilty as anyone else and think that we should just wind it down and agree to disagree.