Is Mise,

"If guns cause crime then why isn't the USA at the top of the crime list?"
If the USA isn't at the top of the crime list then why is its prison population so high?

Aidan,

Because they lock criminals in prison.

However it doesn't have the world's highest crime rates and as it has the most guns in private hands and, if as is always being alleged that inanimate guns cause crime, then why doesn't it have higher crime rates than some countries that have gun control?

Is Mise, I didn't suggest the US had a higher crime rate because of guns. People cause crime, not guns, so it is a silly point anyway.
Suggesting death by guns is significant in the US is a valid point. Bullets from guns kill people, no doubt about it.

I am happy with our low numbers of guns and resulting gun deaths in Australia, although we can certainly tighten up the laws even more.

When someone is about to make a comment about race, it is almost a requirement these days to say something like..."I'm not a racist but...."

I'm not a gun owner/supporter but....

Gun deaths in the US are around 32000. Of those more than 2/3rds are suicide. Gun deaths as murder/manslaughter are less than 9000. Still a big number but not outrageous as compared to some other nations.

It should also be noted that these deaths have been declining since the mid 1990s even while the number of guns have been increasing. That's not the sort or correlation you'd expect if the main problem was guns.

But the main point I wanted to make was one of the main reasons the US has such high numbers of gun deaths and incarcerations is the drug war. The US Department of Justice has estimated that up 50% of gun deaths are related to drugs - people trying to get them, people trying to steal money to get them and most importantly people fighting gang-wars to monopolise their sales area.

Many people (but a minority nonetheless) over the years have proposed ending the drug war. Legalise the lot and let it all be sold under government supervision in the same way as legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol are. The drug war would end overnight. The prisons would start to empty and the US gun death statistics would fall to something like those of Australia.

But something like that is too hard. There is a natural tendency among most people to ban that which they don't like and/or don't understand. Ban drugs, ban drugs, ban discriminatory speech.

Whereas if we adopted an 'un-ban' approach, almost certainly things would improve.

Suze,

The left never ceases to astound me with its naivety.

From 2009 when TA became leader of the opposition, I heard nothing but how unelectable TA was, how stupid he was, etc, even after he reduced labor from a huge majority to a minority government.

Trump didn't become a multi billionaire by being stupid, he is also under spending many of his rivals. The smart money would realise that he probably knows exactly what he is doing, and it is working.

Trump is a not a career politician, and has largely nothing to lose. However, he is decades being the pollies that have risen through the ranks and cannot win with a carbon copy policy platform of mainstream contenders.

He has divined a rich lode of resentment towards career politicians and their sanitized and marginally indistinguishable policy platforms and mining for all it is worth.

I admit that much of American politics seems counter intuitive and while I am strongly pro gun regulation, the feeling I get from the few Americans I know is that guns are a symbol of independence, and that there is deep suspicion of "Big Brother" trying to regulate their lives. Similarly after 911, muslims have been viewed with deep suspicion, and the news from Germany confirms their fears.

Suse,

You said "Guns cause death...."

How can inanimate objects cause anything?

But if, as you said,"Guns cause death" then why is the US gun death rate lower than some countries with much tougher gun control?

The Us with the world's highest civilian gun ownership ought, by your reasoning, to have the world's highest gun death rate.