Oh well

Most gun owners own more than one gun. Was that taken into account with this study. My dad has like 20 of varying makes and models.

I should say, of all the gun owners I know (and I know quite a few) none of them just own one gun.

Yeah, and?

Makes sense. Republicans who 'love their guns' also support batshit crazy presidents who would eventually take away all their freedoms and you'd need the guns to take them down violently.
Or you could be boring old democrats with decent laws and freedoms, oh, and no guns either..
Both ways give freedom for all!

On January 20, 2009, we will see if we need to use them.

Let's hope not.

If I was gay and had a long-term monogamous partner whom I wanted to marry, I would still rather have the right to own handguns and other firearms that the right to get married. What's the point of being able to get married if I can't defend myself from a gang of skinheads who want to break into my house and bash our heads in?

That is why, no matter how much I hate the Republican party, I can never be enthusiastic about voting for a Dem who supports gun control and nanny state laws. They give lip service to liberties and freedoms, but they don't seem to be willing to stand up for some of the most basic ones.

Well, I'm going to need something to protect my bird flu stockpile.

@6 - Hear hear! Gun control sucks (and I am a liberal on just about every other issue).

That figure just doesn't seem right. Studies like these have oddly inflated or just downright made up numbers. At least, 83% of them do.

That said, I'm all for the right to bear arms, just as long as those bearing them aren't either criminals and/or batshit crazy.

@6 So if you were gay w/out a long term domestic partner you wouldn't care either way?
That said, you do make a great point. Legal guns are the only thing that keep our society from degenerating into a Mad Max type wasteland. Just look at the horrible crime statistics in England where guns are banned.
Oh wait, that's right they are lower on just about every level.

Gun control is necessary. Give up your giant metal phalluses for a better society.
I have never owned a gun, never will, and I feel perfectly safe.

Gay marriage is legal in Canada, and so far, no lesbians being gunned down as they exit the church in their matching tuxedos (I find those incredibly cute). YET!

@ 10

I have no strong opinions for or against the issue of gun control. Honestly, I like gun control in England and not in the US. Culturally it makes no sense in the US. Next to abortion, it's perhaps one of the most uphill dividing issues we have. The people in England are used to a lot of censorship issues and infringement on personal freedoms that make trying to implement some more encompassing firearm control logistically impossible. Drastic infringement of personal rights at the expense of a culture go the way of the drug war and prohibition in this country.

And the whole militia thing, we aren't exactly the good guys on the global front, but the two things that deter people from invading US soil for the past two hundred years, are geography and guns.

And if you STILL don't like the numbers just think of it as population control. As a scientist (organic chemist) who sometimes looks at issues like natural resources and biofuels. There really isn't enough to maintain 8 billion people no matter how much you want to crunch the numbers or insist we all go back to living in the swamp. Unless some major advances are made, and people stop having babies, there is going to some major natural resource wars ...

oh wait ...

Oh well.

Well, OR Matt, the pandemic flu should thin down those numbers nicely. It'll be like Europe in the aftermath of the Black Plague--lots of resources left over to distribute (sensibly, I hope) among the living.

I still want firearms to protect my stocked up echinicea!

i say outlaw the manufacture and sale of all bullets. that's fix that lil problem

I own a gun. Ugh!

I am a strict constitutionist on this one. Everyone should be able to own a gun (or many guns), if they want. But, in order to do so, they also need to belong to a well-regulated militia (and go to militia training, say a few weeks a years). That's what the constitution intended, right??

Regardless of what the Second Amendment means, Washington's state constitution protects the individual right to bear arms irrespective of militia membership.

ARTICLE I, SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.
The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this Section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.

http://www.courts.wa.gov/education/constitution/index.cfm

@17 THis is exactly what it says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Not to hard to understand. We shall have both a well regulated militia AND the right to keep and bear arms.

If you do not like what it says you can get 2/3s of congress 2/3s of the Senate and 3/4s of the states to change that, untill you do that get used to people having guns.

@10, Just look at the horrible crime statistics in England where guns are banned.
Oh wait, that's right they are lower on just about every level.


Weeelll, the thing is that since the state took away my revolver and pistols (and those of the rest of the 47000 people who had committed no crime) violent crime IS rising rapidly. Pretty soon we will have US levels of violence, with absolutely no way to defend ourselves.
Tony Martin should have had the thanks of a grateful nation, not a jail sentence.

@11 - exactly. As a proud dual citizen of both the US and Canada, I agree 100 percent.

Unfortunately, both myself and my son are straight, so that doesn't help you much.