The Chronic Curmudgeon

Thanks for the link to that list. I signed too.

People don't shoot at people who might shoot back.

I think that comparing stress related work shootings in the Post Office and Software companies to people who work normally by themselves in gas stations is a bit a broad spectrum. People in the post office do not have to worry about crackheads showing up at 3am looking for a couple hundered dollars to buy a rock.
Your thinking in terms of big corporate suits like yourself who sit in cubicles all day. You need to take into acount minimum wage America. I was nearly robbed closing at Subway one night 6 years ago. We had just locked up not more than 10 seconds before the car pulled up sideways, and man got out wearing a hat over his face and tried kicking in the door.
Guns can equalize a situation when necesary. Its always better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it.
Besides, telling people they can't have a gun means that anyone who really is looking to shoot up Monster Computer will be completely overpowering because He snuck one in and knows no one else will have one. Rarely will criminals shoot someone with their own gun anyway.

This is a time old debate, but I have to side with the NRA on this one.

Actually, were I to go on a shooting rampage, the first people I'd go after are the cowboy-types who watched either too many Clint Eastwood movies or Toby Keith videos. Someone who might shoot back is gonna get greased a hell of a lot sooner than someone who can't shoot me, if it's me robbing a place.

As for the rest of your arguments siding with the lunatic fringe...

-- A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. (Journal of Trauma, 1998)

-- According to the CDC, more Americans were killed with guns in the 18-year period between 1979 and 1997 (651,697), than were killed in battle in all wars since 1775 (650,858).

-- Half of the estimated direct medical costs from gun injuries and deaths -- ranging from $2.3B to $4B -- gets picked up by you and me as taxpayers. (Miller and Cohen, Textbook of Penetrating Trauma, 1995; American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000; Journal of American Medical Association, June 1995; Annals of Internal Medicine, 1998) Don't know about you Jose, but I don't feel like letting a bunch of gang bangers or brain dead rednecks take money out of my pocket.

For the record, as you well know I wasn't always a "corporate suit." Even when in DC I was working retail or non-benefitted jobs, facing angry customers too. Thankfully, I did not have the experience you did at Subway - but I did get mugged in DC, and had someone bust into the Chuck E. Cheese I managed way back in the day. I can't imagine that either of those situations would have been improved by my having a gun.

States where everyone carries a gun have little or no car jackings, drive by shootings, etc..

As I stated earlier very few violent crimes carried out by gang bangers and serial killers are committed with a gun purchased legally and licensed to its user. These guns are usually black market, or stolen out right. If someone wants a gun, they will get one.

Whatever your Journal of Trauma says can be sliced and diced in as many ways as you like. First prove to me the credibility of the claim, and where and how they arrived at those numbers. Then give me specifics on how many of said cases were carried out by a state trained and licensed gun owner.
If one child leans back on his chair, should the whole class be made to stand?
Responsible gun owners who are backed by the US constituion should not be made to pay the price for irresponsible ones.

As for your little CDC factoid, was it really the guns that killed the people? If I make a typo on this computer, should I remove the keyboard from every computer in the house?

Whether or not your situations would have been improved with a gun would depend on you. If you knew how to handle a gun, and trusted yourself enough in those situations, I can't see how a mugger could get away with his crime.
Why do police carry guns? Would their situations be safer if they had none? Do muggers attack police? They pray on whoever they feel is defenseless. Now, if a mugger had a gun as well, I would not pull mine out until he was attempting his get away.

The money situation has nothing to do with guns or the laws that surround them. We pay the medical care because not everyone in this country has healthcare, especially those in low income urban housing where crime is more prevelent. Those people already take money out of your pocket in the form of welfare, medical assistance, etc...

Education is the key to controlling gun related crimes, not making laws and policies that make them harder for the honest people to get.

I don't like Bush.

But I gotta side with Cuzin Joe on this one.