Yes, we can kill people with a lot of stuff, however, this is not evidence that a gun is just a tool and the equivalent of a screwdriver. It's a false argument to say that and basically gun lobby nonsense. To put it in context I could say "Well, all Americans should be allowed to own rocket launchers because very few people in the United States each year are killed in rocket launcher attacks. Therefore rocket launchers are a safer weapon to own than a gun!" then back that up with a statistic that shows that more people are killed by vegetable peelers each year in this country than rocket launchers. Just because when nobody is holding one of these things it is just an inanimate object does not make them the same thing.

You know as well as I do that if we made it legal for everybody to have a rocket launcher and sales of rocket launchers spiked we'd get a bunch of deaths due to rocket launchers.

Yes, if somebody really wants to kill somebody they likely will and you don't need to have a gun to do it but having a gun makes it a hell of a lot easier and increases your chances of success exponentially. Not to mention making it a hell of a lot easier to kill several people with a lot less effort. I mean if your goal is to go into Wal-Mart and kill 10 people with a hammer that's going to take some time and a lot of chasing people around...not to mention the hand to hand combat part of that where you meet the wrong guy and he takes your hammer away and uses it on you.

I don't want to take away your gun and I don't want you to be a victim of any kind. I think it is fine that you own a gun. I would hope that if it came down to it and you had to defend yourself and your family that you could do so without anybody getting hurt. If things escalate to the point where a gun has to be involved I do expect somebody will end up badly injured or killed...and really that's a tragedy because I know you are a decent guy and even if you had to shoot your neighbor in self defense you would not feel very good about it.

I don't think we deal with mental illness or gun safety in this country very well. That's why I think gun violence is a national health crisis.

On top of which, sure, on most days we are well balanced individuals that make the right decisions on how to deal with things...but how many times do people just snap? It happens. Regular down to earth people occasionally go nuts...right out of the blue. So, a guy with a gun could be a "good" gun owner one day and a stark raving lunatic the next maybe due to some horrible thing happening to him or he just walks in on his wife screwing another man.

The idea is not to take guns away from "good" gun owners but just to make it a greater responsibility to own a gun and create rules to play by that allow for regular checks of the gun owner and his guns. I would tie gun ownership in with drivers licences and put on your drivers license that you are a gun owner. Classify your gun ownership status on the license and make you go through renewal procedures same as you must to drive a car.

I don't think that's unreasonable. I don't hate guns or fear them...unless one is pointed at me. I just think we need to raise the bar to own a deadly weapon. Let's not forget too that in many areas of this country a "good" gun owner can buy as many weapons and as much ammo as he wants and once he walks out of the store it is anybody's guess what he does with those guns. He can resell them to people that are not going to be "good" gun owners and who intend to use them for purposes beyond the law...and this happens daily in this country.