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Originally Posted by Brett Robinson
but you don't think i should be allowed to shoot a bullet into a beer can?
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I have no problem with you wanting to put a bullet into a beer can (actually I do, but that's a different argument) What I'm suggesting is that the gun you use to shoot that beercan is stored in a place that makes it difficult for you to use it when you've had enough of shooting beercans and decide to start shooting anyone that's pissed you off in your lifetime. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to own or shoot a gun, just that it need to be controlled in a responsible way.
As for Tim McVeigh, you're right, he did use common farmyard fertilizer to make his bombs, but that's not an argument for banning fertilizer, it's an argument for controlling it. One very simple way of doing this is to ask the person who wants to buy 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to prove that they need it for agricultural purposes. If they can't, don't sell it to them.
The thing with fertilizer is that it is made to be used to fertilize farmland, an unfortunate side effect is that it can also be made in explosives.
The gun on the other hand, was designed with one thing in mind - killing.
I really can't see why there is an argument against at least some form of gun control in the US. The equivalent of yesterdays massacre happens every week in the US - 32 children killed in individual acts of gun related violence every week. That's 1600 per year - roughly the same rate as your soldiers are being killed in Iraq.