[CamB]

This is crap. Two guys from countries with stern gun control (in particular, no handguns) arguing with a bunch of guys from a country awash in them.

Nobody died because of a handgun in New Zealand last year, or the year before. Or the year before. (actually, I think the police shot someone recently, but that's different).

We don't have a handgun problem. You do - you just don't realise it is a problem. Without experiencing it, you will never be able to understand that freely available handguns are a little like freely available meth. NZ, and Australia, have crime - plenty of it, just like the US. The difference is that few people get shot. This is not because there are few guns (there are plenty). It is because there are few handguns (easily concealed) and no national attitude of shooting the crap out of each other - amply demonstrated in this thread.

Unfortunately, the significant number of (hand) guns already in the US, and the national resistance to any removal of them, means your basically screwed.

BTW - note important distinction between handguns and guns (general). If your so dependent on retaining the 2nd amendment, I believe rifles and shotguns would suffice.

Actually, that is bollox - if you actually had to try and defeat your own govt, nothing short of every household owning a tank, a fighter, or at least a minor arsenal of handheld weapons is going to be effective. The second amendment argument is baseless on multiple levels (what constitutes militia?, suitability of legislation which requires treasonous activity to take advantage of, impossibility of successfully rising against own govt, general outdated nature of concept ---> I cannot see how a rational person would not come to the conclusion that it should be sent the way of Prohibition).