I know this conversation is going nowhere and really shouldn't even be taking place here per the rules but since it is in progress I just wanna say to my friends in South Africa and New Zealand and Ireland and everywhere else in the world that there are plenty of Americans who agree with you and believe our country has gone completely batshit crazy when it comes to guns!

There are so many examples around the world where modern countries have fixed this problem by severely restricting or outright banning certain guns. And in every single case it has worked to dramatically reduce gun violence!

And the whole idea that having guns in your home or on your person makes you safer is just false propaganda spread by the NRA and their supporters. Far more innocents are killed every year by accidents or in acts of passion than bad guys breaking into your house. We Americans watched way too many westerns and failed to understand they were movies and not reality.

And this argument that banning guns means only bad guys will have them is totally wrong! We have laws for lots of things and we don't eliminate the law because a few people break it. Yes, indeed, if assault rifles were banned then a handful of criminals would still have them but that still makes the country a whole lot safer since vast numbers of those guns become unavailable to the vast majority of nutballs and well-meaning people who should never have access to them!

The false argument that somehow these mass shootings were staged is particularly disgusting and has absolutely no basis in fact. I guess if you believe bigfoot was abducted by aliens and your toaster is talking to you I can understand how you might buy into this nonsense but reasonable people reject such outrageous lies unless and until some actual proof is presented. This is just a way for gun nuts to be OK with the fact that 20 young children were slaughtered at Sandy Hook and 59 killed in Las Vegas. Did you know the children murdered at Sandy Hook were in some cases so badly damaged that coroners had to wrap them like mummies just so their parents could hold them one last time?

And I get so tired of hearing how people can kill with cars or knives. Over and over again we see that those attempts at murder NEVER result in 59 dead and 527 injured! And when we realize that terrorists can take an airplane and kill thousands we immediately take action to prevent that happening again. I guess we should have just threw up our hands and said terrorists are still allowed to take box cutters on planes so we can't change the laws??

And background checks? What a joke! I can walk into a gun show in any major American city on pretty much any weekend and, without a background check, waltz right out with an arsenal of weapons built for a single purpose...to kill people. I can be a violent felon and still buy my gun at a gun show. Hell, I can even buy it online, with NO BACKGROUND CHECK AT ALL!

Oh, you say you want an AR-15 for target practice? I say the lives of other citizens far outweigh your "right" to own a weapon of mass destruction. I don't care how good you think you are. Maybe my hobby is small nuclear devices or I just like to dabble in a little amateur chemistry producing toxic nerve agents. Well, guess what? The good of society outweighs my desire for my hobby!

All of the lame arguments are so easy to take apart but lemme just finish with a simple summary. The gun issue in the USA is NOT about 2nd amendment (it is for militia anyway and not personal ownership). And it is not about freedom from tyranny (your silly AR-15 will be no match for soldiers with more modern weaponry anyway). Not about personal protection (long guns and especially assault rifles are not what you use to defend yourself against a break-in).

Nope. It is about MONEY. Nothing else. MONEY.

Oh, I get it is not about money to Eddie and others who love guns. They actually believe a lot of what they have been told. They listen to conspiracy theorists who make big money peddling this crap! I think they actually believe that when Mr. Robber breaks in at 3am they will somehow magically awaken and grab their lucky gun and dispatch him without killing Jr. or grandma in the process. Just like Bruce Willis in all those movies!

The NRA promotes these lies and their gun-running manufacturer members profit obscenely. And then they purchase politicians from both sides of the aisle to kill any meaningful gun regulations. Fun Fact: In the USA our Centers for Disease Control are, by law, not allowed to do any research on gun violence and how it affects our people. Gee, I wonder who came up with that law???

And to be clear, I have no illusions that this will change any time soon. The power of MONEY in the USA is everything! And we have a large percentage of our population who routinely vote against their own interests in these matters because they believe ridiculous things!

So, 20 dead kids in Newtown? No problem! 59 dead and 527 injured in Las Vegas? That is just the price we are willing to pay for our freedom to own dangerous toys. Sick.