Hardly; in fact; you miss my point. You said that "as long as you don't have a criminal record and haven't been diagnosed as mentally insane," it's A-OK to own a gun. I quite disagree and used the recent mass murderers as glaring examples of how/why it is not.
Ah, so the mass murderers were completely sane individuals that had no history of mental illnesss... 'kay.
Perhaps you should do some
Research.
Virginia Special Justice Paul Barnett certified in an order that Cho "presented an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," but instead recommended treatment for Cho as an outpatient.
Pls tell me you're kidding. What planet are you from?
The one in which all of the people I respect -- including Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers, and Henry David Thoreau, and Thomas Paine -- believe in freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility.
Honestly, assuming that humans ARE intelligent or responsible is again IMO about the most hideous mistake one can make, esp when examples abound every day showing that many are anything but. In fact, laws and gov't itself exist precisely because we cannot expect everyone to act in an intelligent/responsible way.
No, but we can expect enough people to act responsibly that we don't outlaw everything from vehicles or computers. I mean, people CAN hack with computers... and if we can't be trusted with responsibility, then why should you be trusted with a computer?
Based on that logic, all weapons of any kind should be legal. Rich enough to afford rocket launchers? Tanks? F-16s? Sure why not?
Actually, I don't necessarily see a problem with that. People that are rich enough to afford things like those statistically are not the type of people that actually commit violent crimes. The statistics would back up my side on this.
Of course, there's white collar crimes, but those aren't usually done with a gun... or a bazooka.
Same for drugs. Heroin? Crack? Legalize it all.
Yes, actually. As Penn and Teller said, you should have the right to ingest anything you want into your body... anything else is bullspit.
Why should the responsible suffer the tragedy of being denied such things because of the irresponsible ones?
Why should they? People like you have made no logical argument why everyone should be assumed to be irresponsible first, responsible second... the vast majority of people in society are responsible users. The irresponsible users seem to be the minority, but yet they get the publicity.
Should parents be trusted to be good parents, or should they have their children taken away from them before the child is born? In short, should we assume guilt before innocence, or irresponsibility before responsibility? If the latter, are there any exceptions? Why the reason for exceptions?
I'll note that I'm not quite an absolutist here. There are things that I do feel that the risks outweigh the benefits. I mean, we shouldn't let the average person be able to, say, buy biological or chemical weapons... and I do tend to draw the line at nuclear weapons. But such devices aren't really all that comparable to handguns.
As for guns, yeah - so what if tighter controls would saves countless lives and injuries?
I have yet to see any real convincing evidence that it would, personally. But "countless"? I'm not really seeing a huge epidemic here... just a handful of shooting sprees that get sensationalized.
Would it help you to know that the shooters behind
Columbine obtained the majority of their firearms illegally?
In the months prior to the attacks, Harris and Klebold acquired two 9 mm firearms and two 12-gauge shotguns. A rifle and the two shotguns were bought in what was perhaps a straw purchase in December, 1998 by a friend, Robyn Anderson, who had purchased the shotguns at the Tanner Gun Show in December, in private sales from individual(s).[38] Harris and Klebold later bought a handgun from a friend, Mark Manes for $500. Manes was jailed after the massacre for selling a handgun to a minor,[39] as was Philip Duran, who had introduced the duo to Manes.[40]
That might mean responsible Johnny Sureshot can't own a handgun or an uzi! The horror! He might not be able to hold off the military if they try to take over the country or play GI Joe on weekends? nooooooooooooooo
Yeah, I mean, handguns are so evil and everything. They can even protect
Evil Women from defending themselves from rape. How dare they think that they have a right to protect themselves? Women deserve to be raped, after all.
Sorry, but while I have mixed feelings about guns/gun control, I've yet to hear what I consider a reasonable argument NOT to put much tighter controls on them.
Then I guess you must be plugging your ears and going "Lalalala, can't hear you", which is about as mature as everything else in your post here.
The lives saved via less violent crime, accidents and crime of passion well outweigh the lives saved, military takeover paranoia, or the "constitutional right."
I've yet to see the evidence that could back this claim up.
Gun controls affect responsible users more than irresponsible users. Going "lalalala, can't hear you!" won't actually change that.
If you prevent people with a criminal record or a history of mental insanity from gaining firearms, you prevent people that are more likely to participate in shootings and gang-related crime (which is the bulk of crime, I might add), from participating in shootings. However, if you control the ability to hand out firearms to those who can use them to defend themselves, then it's the people who are acted upon by the criminal element that are punished.
I really can't see how you can go up against that logic.
It seems that people like you have built up this mythology around the average person that buys firearms. They're all rambo vigilante crazy people that wear military camoflauge and love to go around and shoot each other for the hell of it. None of you even stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the majority of people that buy and train with firearms are actually responsible users that are normal, everyday people.
I felt no less safe in Corpus Christi when I found out that with everyone I shopped with, a significant percentage of them probably had a concealed carry license, and maybe even were carrying concealed handguns. I didn't feel like suddenly I was safe then, but now I'm suddenly likely to be involved in a shoot-out at the OK Corral.
I just don't get the paranoia here.
Yeah even if we passed a law and said private ownership of handguns is now illegal, and even if there wasn't rioting in the streets and militia loony tune solider wannabes hiding out and causing all kinds of problems because of it (and there would be w/o a doubt), the idea of getting rid of all or most or even a majority of the privately owned handguns in the US is not looking terribly workable. 
