Exactly, "they prefer to use it" - for one thing the killer's own body is safer using a gun than an ax, knife or bat. So of course someone will use a gun rather than these other implements, if they can.
People are allowed to have guns in the USA, so why wouldn't guns be the weapon of choice for the small number of people inclined to murder ?
BUT
If no gun is available, a person who is angry and out of control enough to kill...will do it with whatever is available.

hkjabwa -
Your post looks interesting; I am just stopping by in a rush now but will look forward to reading it late tonight.

indago -
I could not agree more with your post.

I seem to always be arguing with you Lidwen but you missed a main point. It takes much less effort to kill someone with a gun and it happens so fast. Axes or knife or bats are used usually by people who are far gone from sanity. Many gun killings are accidents however ax, knifes murders are rarely accidently because it usually takes more than one stab to get the job done.

There are a lot of accidents with fire also. Do you and the UN plan to prohibit the use of fire for that reason?

Please understand that I do not agree with you on the above statement at all - not at all. You are from Pakistan? What is the difference in the mind of the average Muslim there, between dying in a martyrdom for Allah vs.
being shot robbing a convenience store?
All the difference in the world

You and I will possibly never agree on this. The feeling of emptiness will be there in any case: but compare the feeling of a widow whose husband died fighting the Nazis in WWII vs. the feeling of the woman whose husband was killed while robbing the convenience store.

Hmmm. They both seem violent to me.

Head injuries from a baseball bat can be gruesome situations in which one wished one had been killed. I have heard about one in quite a bit of detail which occurred in Washington State.

I understand your point about not really wanting to kill a burglar; still, just because you have a gun does not mean you must use it.
I would not want to trust the defense of my home to a tazer though. They don't always work, according to what I've heard.

Evidence suggests that the incidence of crime plummets in American neighborhoods known to be inhabited by gun owners.

Gotta change the laundry; back to your next post after that.

hkbajwa, before I go on to address your second post...you asked in your first post what is the point of having a gun unless you insist on killing the other person?
Answer: you may just wish to incapacitate him/her. Shooting someone in the leg or some other place away from important internal organs is done frequently with that result in mind.

Michael Moore has minimized his own credibility so I would prefer to look at another source of info. I do know that Switzerland promotes the ownership of a gun in each household to defend it, for example.
In any case, the pink elephant in the room that you are not talking about is this: law abiding citizens would be the ones with no guns. Those others would have them.
And
equally importantly, so would the government.
That was the whole point of the Second Amendment. "Militias" were not just to defend households from burglars. They were to defend the freedoms established for all people in this country.
Think about this:
Our nation's documents urge us to overthrow our own government if it treads upon certain basic delineated freedoms.
!!!!
That is quite a mouthful in a national document (can't tell you which document at the moment but I could look for it).
Now...
supposing the government had grown very powerful and did not wish to be overthrown?
How would we the people overthrow it?
How would we bring it to an end and reestablish 'government by the consent of the governed'
???
Particularly when the governing body HAD guns and the people did not?

I have a gun. My husband sometimes has to travel. Let's suppose I hear a noise; the window breaks, and I hear a heavy footstep.
Do I let this guy proceed and rape me and maybe kill me?
Do I grab a knife and hope that my strength will prevail against his in a fight for this knife(miraculously since I weigh 101 lbs) ?
My desire to have a gun is NOT the product of someone having convinced me. It is my opinion of what is the best option to protect myself and my children.

See above; they serve exactly the purpose for which I acquired them.

In most locations it is the exception rather than the rule to be the victim of a violent crime...which is terrific unless you happen to turn into one of those 'exceptions'.

Please don't think I am just dismissing everything you say, out of hand; I'm not. You make some good points and I can see that you have good intentions.
But any political entity trying to disarm private citizens immediately calls forth my suspicion. They might have intentions quite other than yours.

hah.. lidwen you are lovely...

your arguments are super. but there is a general red thread i see and that is a lack of faith in your people and government. You contend that the government might screw you over and that there are people out there who only mean you harm.

I contend that this faith needs to be restored before my arguments will carry any weight.

I believe that guns are a temporary measure that only deal with the symptom of a disease and not the disease itself.

The disease here is the fact that the US government has never completely convinced its people that it exists with the blessing of the people and FOR the people. Is it not scary that you consider your elected government a potential adversary whom you may have to take up arms against.

On a more personal level i understand that you want to protect yourself, your family and your home from violation by outsiders. And it's true that having a weapon for self defence gives a sense of security. But you protect yourself from potential violence against yourself, by increasing your own capacity for violence. Tree-hugging hippie type as i am, i find that disheartening. Yet understandable

Man is not built to be taught by violence. And violence or the threat of violence or potential for violence is not a solution to anybody's safety and security.

but seriously.. i think you are lovely

Lidwen Wraith wrote:Alexander Hamilton wrote, in the Federalist No. 28: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government ...". "The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them."

Notice the wording "original right of self-defense". This is reflected in the words of the second amendment: "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." The right of self defense is an original right, and it is not to be infringed. It is up to the people to defend their rights, either individually, or by coordinated effort through militia.

Lidwen Wraith wrote:The words from the opinion of the court in the case of US v Gomez were never more cogent: "It seems tendentious to reject out of hand the argument that one purpose of the [Second] Amendment was to recognize an individual's right to engage in armed self-defense against criminal conduct. In modern society, the right to armed self-defense has become attenuated as we rely almost exclusively on organized societal responses, such as the police, to protect us from harm. One can argue that the rise of a professional police force to enforce the law has made irrelevant, and perhaps even counterproductive, the continuation of a strong notion of self-help as the remedy for crime. The possession of firearms may therefore be regulated, even prohibited, because we are "compensated" for the loss of that right by the availability of organized societal protection. The tradeoff becomes more dubious, however, when a citizen makes a particularized showing that the organs of government charged with providing that protection are unwilling or unable to do so. The fundamental right to self-preservation, together with the basic postulate of liberal theory that citizens only surrender their natural rights to the extent that they are recompensed with more effective political rights, requires that every gun control law be justified in terms of the law's contribution to the personal security of the entire citizenry"

Suzanna Gratia, in Killeen, Texas related an incident at the Luby's cafeteria, in 1991. She explained that she didn't grow up with guns; she wasn't raised in a violent neighborhood. She does not favor hunting. She was given a gun by a friend, when she moved out on her own, for her personal self-protection and was taught how to use it. She was at the Luby's cafeteria with her mother and father, enjoying a noon luncheon, when a truck came through the front window of the cafeteria. She said that she believed that there had been an accident and she got up from the table to go help. Then they heard shots being fired. She said that she and her parents dropped to the floor, turned the table over, and put it in front of them for protection. The firing continued. At first she thought it was a robbery, but the firing continued, intermittently. She then realized that this was an execution, and that eventually she and her parents would be the target. She said, "I reached for my purse and then realized that I'd made one of the stupidest mistakes of my life. I had taken my gun out of my purse about three months earlier and it was 100 yards away in my car because in the State of Texas there is no such thing as a concealed carry permit. You can't get one." She was a licensed chiropractor, and was afraid that if "authorities" found the gun on her person she would lose her license to practice. She said that she would have had the perfect opportunity to shoot the individual who was executing the occupants of the cafeteria and to stop this carnage if she would have had the gun in her purse. Her father said that he had to do something to stop this man, and rose from the floor to attack the man during a brief moment while his attention was elsewhere. As he lunged toward the man, the man saw him coming, turned toward him and fired. Her father fell to the floor, mortally wounded. Her mother, horrified at the sight of her husband laying on the floor, went to him to comfort him, and, cradling his head in her lap, she was shot by the assailant. Suzanna, and some others, escaped from this carnage. She lived to tell the story. Her parents did not.

She submitted testimony in 1995 to the Virginia Legislature concerning a bill before them concerning the right to self defense. She noted: "On Dec. 17, 1991, in Anniston, Ala., a restaurant patron defended himself and saved the lives of nearly two dozen others held hostage by two armed would-be robbers. The reluctant hero, who was legally carrying his .45 caliber fire arm, stopped both assailants before they could complete their crime or injure any innocent customers. On Oct. 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, an armed homicidal maniac methodically killed 22 people and then himself, facing no resistance from the scores of potential victims, including me. That tragedy will be forever etched in my memory. My parents were brutally murdered, and I was helpless to protect them. None of us in that restaurant could control our own destinies, for Texas politicians had seen fit to keep us disarmed." She noted the difference between the concealed carry laws which were more lenient in Alabama at the time. She also noted: "Clearly, concealed-carry laws translate to saving the lives of loved ones in a manner similar to health or life insurance. If ever there arises that time when it is needed, no substitute will do, and I don’t intend to be victimized again."

She pointed out: "In drafting the Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers acknowledged self-protection as a prime goal incorporated in the Second Amendment. In quoting criminologist Cesare Beccaria, still renowned for his work "On Crime and Punishment" penned in 1764, Thomas Jefferson said: ''Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." "

Legislators, and judges, have made, and upheld, so many regulations against the keeping and bearing of arms by the individual since the time the Bill of Rights, and State Declarations of Rights, have been ratified, that the people are now so afraid to defend themselves that they are relegated to scurrying like trapped rats when the "terror of the moment" arrives, as in the case of the commuter train incident. The woman who recalled that some of the people were slipping in the blood of others trying to get away, also declared that "It was awful." Yes, it was awful; but there is not one report that anyone stood before Colin Ferguson and told him that he was violating the law.

Statistically, a gun owner is more likely to shoot a family member or friend than an intruder.

However, statistically, a child is more likely to drown in the family swimming pool then die by gunfire, self-inflicted, accidental, or otherwise.

The answer... We should ban swimming pools!