This weekend tragedy hit the Seattle area. A person walked into a coffee shop early in the morning, took out a gun, and murdered 4 policemen.
As the local TV stations ran updates on the story all day long, I kept waiting for the usual response from the NRA and gun lovers. You know, the one where they assure us that guns save lives. The one where they say this tragedy would have been stopped if the victims had been armed with guns.
Well these victims were police and they were armed with guns. They even had bullet-proof vests on! It sounds like the shooter was wounded but that did not stop him from killing his intended victims.
No, we dont need more guns we need less. Guns increase killings they dont discourage them. Look at Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and the USA.
This tragedy would not have happened if we were more concerned with safety and less concerned with making money by selling weapons. Maybe we cannot stop the movies and video games that glorify killing people with guns or the delusional folks that need a gun to feel important but we can stop the guns by making them illegal. There are no gun killings without gun factories.
If you want to keep single-shot hunting rifles and bird-shot shotgun ammunition, fine. Every other handgun, high-powered rifle, automatic weapon and ammunition should be banned and the factories strictly controlled. It is time to make our country and the rest of the world a safer place by ending the weapon industry. It is time to grow up and say that making money is less important than saving lives.
Just like racing games don't make people drive more aggressively and how fighting games don't result in more fistfights, guns in games are harmless for 99.99% of the population. The other 0.01% will find a way to express their perversion.
That said, your argument is sound, with the exception that it's against the 2nd amendment.
Our forefathers wanted to ensure that despots couldn't come to power by having a well armed militia. It was a great idea into the better part of the 19th century, but just like 2/3rds voting, it's an idea that is past its time.
The real despotic power, as you pointed out, is corporate influence over policy. The second amendment ought to be revised to give us freedom from corporate intervention in public policy.
Finally, Im on the fence about gun control as you advocate. Consider banning abortions. If you do that, people will continue to have them, but now they'll be criminals doing it in back alleys.
Banning guns (or drugs) just puts it into the dark dank corners where organized crime can flourish.
Rather, what we need is more regulation, and to put private gun sales in the hands of the government. If I have to go to the state to buy alcohol, guns doesn't seem out of place...