Every single one of the comments I've made has been coherent, articulate and well within fact. I did miss that one statistic on the Factbook, but then I corrected myself (and, rather conveniently, you as well). Forgive me for continuing.

I believe it's now time for you to show your statistics that show that of two middle class societies in the UK and US, the one with more guns (the US, obviously) has less crime.

Yes.

Sarcasm implies that the other person is an idiot and that you are above stating it as an opinion.

Personal is the honest way of stating an unwarranted opinion.

Both are the wrong way to discuss things.

I have to say that I totally agree with everything you've said here Draginol/Frogboy/Brad.  I have actually read before that crime in ye olde wild west was actually far lower than it is today, largely in part due to the widespread ownership of guns (not to mention the death penalty - tell the government to rev up that electric chair already!)

The government is supposed to protect us, but it can't be everywhere at once.  The city I live in has about 250,000 people, and you rarely see a police officer, so everyone speeds, everywhere and always.  If the police department gave everyone a portable speedtrap, you can bet that that would stop really soon.

And just imagine how soon it would stop if the police department gave everyone a gun.

It probably wouldn't.  How would you know which of the people around you have your plate number to the police?  And even if you were to shoot them, they can shoot back, which would certainly make me think twice.

Anyway, it's a moot point - I was merely using that as an example.  If you gave everyone a gun, then petty crimes would soon disappear, because people don't want to get shot, right?

Ironically, I've heard that in spite of his favorable stance toward gun control, US president-elect Obama wants to create a 'citizen's police force/military', and make sure they were armed.  I have to ask though: if you're trying to control guns, why would you give them to anyone?  Making anti-gun laws and then turning around and giving certain people guns is a prime condition for a black market.

It's never a good sign when an argument starts using the same points to support it as Bond villains! Such a point could be used to try and justify just about anything, and so carries little weight IMO. It's also worth noting that cigarrettes kill people, and they are facing increasing restrictions on their use.

A big problem with this though. Lets say you're right (I have no idea to be honest because I don't have the time to look for crime data broken down by such demographics+analyse it) and there would either be no difference in crime rates for 2 middle class families, or the UK/Canada would have higher rates. That however doesn't mean gun controls would be a bad idea. That is, it might be that gun controls have little impact on crime for the middle classes, but they may still have an impact on the working class. Unfortunately crime statistics aren't brilliant (especially if you're looking for nice comparable figures from different countries with enough information on other variables to allow you to try and isolate the impact of the one of key interest, gun control), but I'd be very surprised if countries with gun control had no difference with murders than countries with no gun controls even after accounting for income/class and ethnic differences. Also looking at overall crime rates for all relevant countries with+without gun controls is hardly cherry picking - that would be something like only looking at a small subset (such as 2 middle class families ).

(Edit: This was in response to the OP btw, since you've addressed some of the points I covered already I think having a quick skim through later posts)

I seriously want to know more about the bullshit argument that is represented in the 2nd amendment. "To let the people take up arm against an oppressive government". Yhea, sure, it worked in the American Revolution. But the American Revolution wasn't against an oppressive governement, it was against an oppressive Foreign Power that thought it still had total and absolute rule over the Colonies.

The actual governement of the 13 Colonies were the ones that rised up in defense of their citizens, and rallied the people to their banner, and it wasn't about the citizen who rose up themselves against the english governement. Even better for the USA (lucky you), you actually had an established ruling establishment running around, so that the revolution would lead to pure chaos.

Now, try to look right now if the US governement would become oppressive. Off course, they aren't stupid, they would not convert to 100% of pure evilness overnight. It would be in a grey area, where many people would be against the governement, but many others wouldn't. And if the people who are against the Governement's legislation rose up, that wouldn't be a revolution, it would be a civil war. Even the civil-war that happened in the past of the U.S. was civil ennough, since it was mostly States Vs States. But what would happen if the civil was at the very inside of the states? What if the authorities of most state actually accepted the oppressive legislation, and a majority of the population (let's say, 65%) rose up to fight it?

You'd have a dirty civil war, where one side would be militias and the other one would be national guards and the federal army. And even if you won, what then? You'd end up with two bad things at the end:

- A stateless nation, since you just destroyed it in your revolution

- A population who has an history of destroying their ruling state if they don't agree with it. The point #2 is what worries me the most. The rule of precedent makes everything easier a 2nd time than the 1st time. It's so hard to enforce rule in the most violent parts of the world because people over there just tell themselves "Well, I fought against the last ruler. Why not fight against the new one since he doesn't please me?". It becomes the easy choice, to simply take up arm.

It's not about Gun Control. It's about the ludicrous idea of taking up arms against your state "if". A real revolution, where the state has to be destroyed and replace, never ended up well. The French Revolution ended up in turmoil that eventually created Napoleon (but lucky for the French, he managed to restore the Rule of Law in the land, allowing a proper state to be formed in the aftermath). The Russian Revolution ended up with the Communists. Let's not look at the Cuban, Haitian, Chinese revolutions too closely, ok? (Specially not Haitian, who ended up with the worst possible outcome, and 2 revolutions in the past 20 years and a failed state)

The Spanish revolution ended up in a drawn civil war, do I begin to make my point? The American revolution was more of the liberation of your state against it's homeland than an actual "Let's replace the state".

Destroying a state to replace it with something else will always create incredible turmoil in the country, and a lot of death and sorrow on the long term. The Coalition have done it in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and look where it lead them. It's more than simply toppling a head of state: it's destroying the very structure of the administration of a country.

I agree with most of your points about revolutions, but I believe your characterisation of how governments turn evil is wrong.

While it is a common assumption that there is a slippery slope from freedom to tyranny, history shows that it doesn't work that way. Instead what happens is that suddenly a huge number of people (30% to 40%) believe that things should be different than they are now. And then some charismatic individual promises change, is elected, and things change very quickly. Far from a slippery slope, there is a sudden change and suddenly the country is a dictatorship with most people either supporting it or hoping that it will at least do away with the corruption of the previous regime.

Similarly, while anti-government protesters and rioters (like those in Greece) tell themselves that they are fighting against oppression, history has shown that such violent protests are usually the beginning of a dictatorship, not the end. Protests that ended dictatorships were usually non-violent.

How was England a foreign power to Englishmen?  We just rebranded ourselves as Americans.

Considering you are not American, your knowledge is not too bad.  But....

It was against an oppressive government.  Just because the seat of power was not local does not make it foreign.  Try invading Hawaii and see if you dont get the "Sovereign" government to slam you.

Yes and no.  Only about 40% of the population actually rebelled.  The rest sided with the crown, or just did not get involved.  But if you follow revolutions around lately, 40% is a big chunk of change for any revolution.  And there was no "ruling" class.  There was already a system of local governance (the longest continuing elected body on this continent is the Virginia General Assembly - then called the House of Burgesses).

Wrong again.  The civil war (hardly civil or civilized - one of the most barbaric in the history of man) was really the war between the states.  Calling it a "civil" war is a misnomer from a descriptive point of view.  Should it happen again, it is not going to be "North Dakota Vs. South Dakota", but the doers against the oppressors.

Again, we have grown soft and lazy.  revolution is not a civil or painless process.  That is why they say that the cosst to recover a freedom is a lot more expensive than to prevent the loss.  Of course it would be like that - short term.  But as we see from almost all nations, time heals all wounds (and wounds all heals).

That would only be an issue if it happened frequently.  As it does not, I would not worry about it.

Yes, and you still miss the difference.  The case (and cases if you wanted to go furhter) that you cite have one fatal flaw in them.  They are not like America.  Australia and Canada are most like America, and yet still nothing like America.  We threw off our crown and have had a history - sucessful - of self governance.  So far, no other nation can claim that.  So while it is nice to look at other examples for guidance, this is a time that it will fail you.  Simpy put, there are some Spanish that are Americans, but America is not Spain.

English civil war? You had a revolution/civil war, the monarchy's ruling power was effectively destroyed, yet there haven't been any revolutions since. Not that I'm disagreeing with your central point, just providing an exception to the rule!

Such an attitude makes it even more likely that past mistakes made will be repeated. You can learn from history's mistakes, both from mistakes made in the past by your country, and those by other countries. Just because there are some differences between the two, it doesn't render such comparisons obsolete, and you didn't really give reasons as to why it should (that is, you don't seem to be saying that overthrowing the US government wouldn't increase the risk of any future government being overthrown, or wouldn't run the risk of being long, drawn out+very costly, etc.).

I stumbled upon this article. This is the third of its kind in as many days that I've read about parents leaving their loaded weapons in easy-to-find places. This is exactly why the gun safe idea I thought of is essential. Link.

Cromwell's rule was terrible and the monarchy was re-instituted quickly.

You can learn, but trying to fit a square peg into a round hole is not learning, it is trying to force everyone into your own world view.  Clearly anyone that thinks the US is just another european country has not learned from their own past mistakes.

There is a reason that the English part of the Americas are doing a lot better than the Spanish and Portugese parts.  If you want to try to pigeon hole the US into the SPain model, you do not understand the difference or why it came about.

You still had an instaured governement, didn't you? When the 13 Colonies decided to vote on the Declaration of Independance, it wasn't just a few people who, for no other reason that that, decided to show up.

The Colonies still had an established administration for local affairs that deferred many powers to the Crown, since that's how things were. But you still had a state member of the British Empire, and you had everything in place to rule yourselves afterward.

Now, think for a minute if the people of Virginia happened to rebel against their own governement. They have to throw down their governor/legislative branch, since they are the ones who WERE the governement. You'd end up with a Stateless state. (darn it.. can we call the "states" of the U.S. "provinces" to make an easier distinction?). You'd end up with a stateless province. You could try to form up something to replace it, but it still would be an improvised governement, where the Founding Fathers actually had solid grounds upon which create the USA.

In short, you had a local authority that obeyed the British Crown. And it was that authority that voted Independance. Was there a general referendum at the time? Was it the people, or their representatives that voted to rebel against the Britishes?

If Hawaii decided to rebel to separate from the USA, they wouldn't try to throw down their own state, but to separate from what they would consider an oppressive overlord : the USA. If Hawaii was an independant state, and their people actually threw down the local authorities, you'd have what I call a "Revolution". In the first case, they'd take up arms against the USA's governement, while in the second, they'd take up arms against their OWN governement.

there is a clear dichotomy you have to make: If it's one ethic, religion minority, etc... that tries to separate from an grander/bigger entity (Quebec, the USA, Kosovo, Basques, Scotland, Vietnam, etc...), it's a separatist movement. If you have one country that wants to throw down their own state to replace a new one (France, Russia, China, Cuba, Iran) you'd have what I call a "revolution" of peoples against their state. I don't think any of those ended up well for their own people in the long run (France got the luckiest, but only because they were lucky ennough to have Napoleon and his Code).

The American Civil War was the actions of a separatist movement of the Southern States. You couldn't really call it a "civil war", since they had officially decided to not be part of the USA anymore. There is the general illusion that the USA always were united (that is why it is called a civil war, after all), but History is written by the victors, eh? And the Northen States fought so that nobody could leave the USA (Lincoln's view of the Constitution), but you effectively had States fighting States. And with some exception, you did not had internal conflicts within a same state (maybe Virginia, my knowledge of the specifics is somewhat blur)

Usually, what you people are talking about when speaking of the 2nd Amendment, it's either throwing down your own governement (Federal or State) or separate from the USA (since it maybe would be 15 states out of 50 that would feel persecuted and oppressed). In the second case, you'd maybe need militias to support the National Guard, but you wouldn't need to fear the local governement to steal your guns from your dead cold hands.

On the second case (an actual revolution) you'd effectively be afraid of that. But outside fighting a guerilla warfare against the U.S. Army and the National Guards (which have more combat experience fighting guerilla against much tougher opponents than anything small-time zealot militias or part-time gun nuts could ever muster), you couldn't do much to be able to beat them. You'd need fighter planes, anti-armor weaponry and tactical nukes to even try to make a dent. Now, do you *really* want the average people/criminal to have access to those kind of weaponry?

It's just un-realistic, and it's an empty argument that is nicely rooted into your mindset - since it's so freaking patriotic to refer to the American Revolution and the Constitution -. You cannot fight the state with rifles alone, and you shouldn't fear for your gun rights if your state wants to separate from the Federal Governement. and in both case, you'd end up with a wreaked country.