The numbers drop dramatically after the ban. I choose to interpret that to mean the ban had an effect on the numbers. You choose otherwise. To what else should we attribute the change?

I quoted the sentence with "absolute despotism" in it. There it is government, in the singular - Jefferson refers to the British - not to some imaginary American dictatorship of the future. (Who's Steve?)

The fear of government (or governments) Jefferson had is not the interpretation you thrust upon him or his writings. He wrote, in justification and defense of the rebellion, about the British and the tyranny of royal colonial government - he did not fear a government that represented the people.

Why is the defense of gun ownership so fear based? Do you really expect to rise up against some weird American dictatorship in the future? That's the real reason gun control shouldn't exist? Has anyone got a good reason why there are so many more gun victims in the US versus other countries? Is it important or should we just ignore it?

I don't recall the East Germans, the Poles, the Ukraines, or the Lebanese population needing assault rifles to bring down their unresponsive governments.

This has been an interesting discussion but I'm going to move along. See ya in some other thread....

JSD:

Excellent idea. Assault weapons as "fun" and to overthrow the government is a bit much for me, and I live in a stste where guns are common, plentiful, and respected.

Sadly, someone who thinks the way Competent does makes him, to some people, a poster child for more stringent gun control.

I'm out of this thread as well. It is going mowhere fast. The question will never be resolved because, like so many issues, emotion, not logic, is in command.

Ohhhh He11...I think only illegal aliens should have guns....

Its the nature of self defense. Being assaulted or oppressed is something most people fear instead of looking forward to.

The U.S. and its military is responsible for the what happened in East Germany, Poland, USSR and Lebanon. So the treat of "assault rifles" did have a bearing.
You don't always have to use them for them to effect change. The knowledge of them, and the cost required to defend against them, is normally enough to make an overbearing gov't give into the needs of their people.
When the gov't controls the people, it does what it wants, and in order to do this they must disarm the people. Look at what is happening in Africa.

Terry
What happens to an unarmed people under a dictatorship? We Americans got our first live view of this via TV, from Hungary in 1954±, rocks against tanks.

tabs,

thanks for that.

Supporting the right of illegal aliens to have guns should be right up the Republican alley. The principal cause for illegals in California is economic. The farmers need cheap labor and so their Republican legislators will never truly cut off the supply. And since most gun rights poeple are Republican, it seems that this is a natural outcome.

So if there is ever an armed uprising of illegals living in this country agasinst the tyranny of local government, do we treat them as patriots or criminals.

So,
East Timorians, freedom fighters or terrorists?
Palestinans, freedom fighters or terrorists?

Sigh. If you look at the numbers you'd see they aren't a nice smooth curve or line. 1996 had a spike in deaths - perhaps a school yard massacre or something that year? Because the variability in data, one has to look at trends, not at a small part of the data to the exclusion of the other data. This is the sort of thing one learns in statistics class so it seems obvious to me but I guess it isn't to everyone.

Here's an example of how this sort of thing works:
Over the course of a month in the fall, average temperatures will go down. Some days will be unseasonably warm and others will be more winter like. The trend is for the temps to go down though. If a law was passed to restrict green house gas emissions on an unseasonably warm day, one cannot conclude that it was effective just because the days after that continued the cooling trend.

-Chris

The 1996 'spike' was due to the Port Arthur shootings. It only takes one unhinged individual to do this:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/bryant/index_1.html

So I guess if everyone had been armed, maybe he would have just killed under 5 in the confusion before someone would have shot him, and then someone else thinking there were two of them would have shot the good citizen.

Arming everyone certainly would have prevented a death here- NOT.

I guess you are agreeing with exactly what I am arguing! That the real intentions of many who are seeking more gun control is to disarm citizens like myself who believe in individual rights, liberty and the rule of law -- and who are willing to stand-up and fight if our society breaks down to the point where those things are lost.

Well here in Florida...I can carry a switchblade if I like with a CWP, no length restriction, which I have. However if I go to Ohio, they will honor the gun part of my permit but NOT the blade. Go figure.

\

Oh do they really? Seems to me that our electoral / voting process is pretty easily compromised. Big money is what controls our society today.

Just a few years ago here in the Seattle area, and I assume nationwide, an anti-gun group purchased some billboard space. On these billboards were photographs of small children, averaging perhaps 6-8 years old. The billboard quoted statistics on how many "children" were killed every year by gun violence. The NRA looked into the source quoted and discovered that "children" used to compile the quoted statistics were up to 21 years old. Some very large percentage of the "children" killed by guns were inner city youth between the ages of 18 to 21 involved in gang activity and the drug trade. Why did the billboard not accurately reflect the true make-up of the population actually used to compile the data? Why did they choose to plaster the faces of cute young children on the billboard rather than the older drug dealing gang bangers that make up the majority of the gun related deaths in their data? Out of the 10 to 12 "children" shown, to be an accurate reflection of the real population, only one should have been so young and cute and heart-wrenching. I'm not say that the older gang-bangers' lives are worth any less, and that their deaths are any less of a tragedy. Apparently, though, this particular anti-gun group felt they did not have the same "sympathy factor" and chose not to display the real faces behind the statistics.