Misanthrope: It must be such a comfort to know you're always right; just as (terrified) John Howard was, when he "disarmed only" the law abiding gun owners.

I'm still waiting for the Authorities to remove the guns from the hands of the criminal element!
Perhaps they should be dobbed in, disarmed or shot on sight by law abiding gun owners?

As we found out with the war on drugs, which has already killed more Americans and Mexicans than WW11; and just increases in violence and the mounting death toll; prohibition is impossible; and or, it's impossible to enforce unenforceable laws!

Already most American prisons (private enterprise in action) are bulging at the seams; and the lawlessness just increases!

Should we tell a man who has run out of welfare and food stamps not to take up arms in order to fed his family and or eat? Just how do you do that?

Of course he has other options, he and his family could chose to simply starve.

And it's no use telling him he could just get a job when he's already sold the family jalopy,[needed to travel to where the work might be,] and much of the Midwest is now covered in virtual depression era tent cities and soup kitchens!

You think with your mindset that means work is plentiful don't you?

Not for nothing was the humble rabbit (starvation diet) the mainstay of many a depression era family!
And we are looking right down the barrel of yet another even worse depression!

Simply put, if people are forced to hunt ferals for food, then they need to be properly trained in the safe and proper use of firearms!

None of which happens in the very well armed criminal world; or even where annual license fees (revenue raising/extortion or "gun crime") become completely prohibitive for the poor and downtrodden!

It's okay to visit a dream castle in the clouds Misanthrope, but one must never move in as a permanent resident!
Cheers, Rhrosty.

misanthrope,

Look up Zimmerstutzen if you think that all guns are designed for nothing but killing.

Here's a reference to save you the effort,
https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=zimmerstutzen

Lord of the flies LEGO Lord of the flies; rather than race based ethnicity!

I mean, look at the deep south and at extremism like the Klu Klux Klan; or the religious extremism that prevails back in then thar hills, where every boy and his hown dawg has a gun and attends snake bite initiation ceremonies, that masquerade as religious worship!

Ah say, listen here boy, what don't kill yer can only make yer stronger! Oops!

Now gimme some of that white lightening, ah need to drown ma sorrows!
Yehar!

Ouch, watch where you're pointing that thar pistol Paw, you just done shoot me in ma big toe daddy!
The self same one you got me in last week! It sure do smart some!
How am ah supposed to take those little piggies to market now?

It seems odd don't you think, in those parts the savages are the "civilized" white folk; and the colored folk are the peaceable Hymn singing neighbors, albeit with their fair share of "sanctioned" or culturally acceptable domestic violence?

A thousand blessings Effendi, and may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.

Ah sigh, would that I could enjoy such perverse pleasure!
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Rhosty, Aiden and LEGO, Australia is nothing like America, so I don't know why you go on about our need to learn the fun art of shooting guns so we can shoot any random terrorist in the street, or some skinny rabbit in a nearby field?

A bit paranoid maybe?

I for one, after learning how to pull the trigger and knock off someone's head, would then have to take lessons in preparations of fluffy bunny for tea!

Rhrosty your posts are much better when you don't cut & paste garbage. If anyone in this welfare state has run out of money to feed their family, they are idiots, who spend our taxes frivolously.

Shadow Minister, I'm surprised at you, posting emotive garbage from the anti gun lobby, as if it had some validity.

I have been carrying an air rifle since I was 10, & a rifle since I was 12, & you know, no one has ever taken it off me & shot me, & I have yet to kill anyone with one.

In my early teens I & many like me, supplemented the family food stock with a 22 occasionally. Of course, being kids for whom a gun was a tool, & not a symbol, we usually dug the rabbits out of their burrows with a mattock, rather than waste expensive ammunition on them.

People who are afraid of honest men having a gun are really too responsive to emotive symbols, to be more than a waste of space.

Rhrosty,
There were about 3,000 recorded extra judicial executions in the U.S.A between the end of the civil war and the 1970's, somewhat less than 2000 of the executed people were Black.
Last year alone Blacks are thought to have perpetrated around 7,000 murders of other Blacks, America doesn't have a gun problem is has a Black problem.
Go to Google and spend an hour going through crime statistics for the Appalchian region, Kentucky, West Virginia, Eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennesee, which have some of the poorest counties in the U.S.A but which are also overwhelmingly White and compare the crime rates to similarly poor but majority Black counties in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.
Why is crime almost non existent in "them thar hills" and out of control in Tuskeegee, or Montgomery or Atlanta?
Socio economic factors and discrimination have nothing to do with the problem, Appalachian whites are poor, suffer discrimination and have to live down apalling stereotypes (as you've thoughtfully demonstrated for us) yet they commit almost no violent crime.

If the U.S is to be used as an example or supporting evidence in the gun debate then we need to look at similar communities with similar ethnic makeup and compare like for like. We don't have large numbers of American Negroes in Australia so we need to look at communities in the U.S which are around 92% White, 5% Asian and 3% Indigenous, in that light the evidence suggests than allowing people to own firearms will have no effect on violent crime in Australia.