*You lot make out that by having the right to own a gun, means we will all go out and declare open season on anyone we dislike.*

Nope rehctub, its actually all about humans being emotional creatures.
Let's say Rehctub goes home during the day for some reason and finds
the wife shagging the pool boy. Anger turns to rage, he grabs the
gun and shoots him or the wife. Its easy, its convenient.

When he cools down, Rehctub realises the mistake, but its too late,
they lock him up. He never had done a course in anger management.

That is exactly why so many people get shot in America. So if
all those guns arn't around, less people will get shot.

Poirot, tight controls, no, banning or making ownership near on impossible, yes.

And yes, it is America, and I accept that.

Yabby, you're kidding!!

rehctub,

You're kidding.

The principal reason that so much gun trauma occurs in a country like America is precisely for the reasons that Yabby expounds.

Easy access to a tool such as a gun means that people acting irrationally or emotionally have an incredibly increased chance of picking up that gun and killing or maiming the object of their anger.

If you can point to another reason why the general public in the US is so threatened by the ease of access to firearms, I'd be interested to know what it is.

Poirot, yes you have me on that one, I forgot it was about America, my bad. Sorry about that Yabby.

Sorry, it's a bit OT, but I couldn't let this pass without comment, Jay Of Melbourne.

>>...Bankstown and Brixton, the low element of those communities is partially civilised, partly barbarian savage... Brixton's Jamaican "Gangstas" need guns to protect themselves from the local Somali and Pakistani "Gangstas"...and so on."

I can't speak for Bankstown, but I do know for a fact that your depiction of Brixton is way out of date. In a few short years it has reinvented itself, and there isn't a "gangsta" in sight.

http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1543/brixton-village-market-restaurants-and-cafes-guide

In a recent article on the Olympic torch passing through Brixton, the novelist Tibor Fischer commented:

"When I jogged around Brockwell Park in the late '80s, it was me, several mentally ill individuals on benches and a couple of black boxers in bin liners, sweating it off for a weigh-in. Now the place is jammed with 20-something white couples trotting around in their UBS and Deloitte T-shirts. I can't make up my mind which is worse."

Who knows, if only they could track down a decent barista or two, Bankstown might make the same transition.

Good work Pericles. It's been a while but I used to walk around in the wee hours of the morning off my face and never came to any grief in Brixton.

The power of the yuppie and gentrification is wonderful. All around the world the power of real estate prices is moving the pikeys out to the wild west, like Macquarie Fields. It keeps our cities safe!

I like the Herald's real estate sections; Domain North, Domain East, and Domain 'Inner' West. The South and West of course is not where any of the readership would ever contemplate living!