The right to bear arms?

> From: Ed Minchau [mailto:spider_boris@...]

> Violent crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed
> following their introduction of gun-control laws

Presumably the fact that the IRA is no longer buying and has forced the market to go elsewhere has naturally nothing to do with this state of affairs. Besides which, most of the illegal guns purchased in England serve to 'protect' their owners from other illegal guns. Speaking of which...

> (as now the potential victims were defenceless against criminals

When a gun is correctly aimed at you, how does possessing another gun (and one that's probably not immediately to hand) help you? If you're at home and you have a gun upstairs will its presence magically affect the flight path of the bullet a bugler fires at you? If you're walking down a dark alleyway, will its presence psychically discourage muggers attacking you?

The intent of American gun law was always to allow the public to help prevent a hostile government take over, and to allow them to hunt for food, not protect them against criminals. Both of which are largely defunct in the modern western world and a space colony.

I'm not in favour of gun-bans or guns, but taking policy to either extreme is foolish.

ANTIcarrot.