Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

Actually guns and drugs have some remarkable psychological similarities. A lot of people are 'gun nuts' who derive a good deal of pleasure out of owning, collecting, and shooting their guns. It seems to give them an adrenalin rush. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. Almost zero lawful gun owners are a threat to me, and the fact that 75% of the households in my area own firearms for home defense is a giant benefit to me.

Where is this remarkable psychological similarity? Adrenaline junky? That is not a similarity and nor it is remarkable or even related to people using drugs for variety of reasons.

Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

Vastly more people feel vulnerable and feel a lot more security knowing that they can defend themselves against the threats that are out there. Older people and females who are by nature more weak than most of their attackers are especially prone to feel this sense of security, and with good reason. It takes a special kind of dirtbag to want to deprive a person of this sense of security and leave them to the tender mercy of the local rapists and/or meth-heads.

The only valid excuse for people to have guns for protection is to protect them self's from the same level of threat- guns. You are painting a picture of America which is full off meth-heads and rapists, not only they are so many that everyone has to be armed to the teeth, but also they seem to be are armed with guns, so that all citizens have only one way to protect them from armed meth-head rapists - guns.

Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

I feel aligned with the founding fathers and their concepts of 'freedom.' And they did make it the 2nd amendment after all. If that makes us 'sick', then so be it. A lot of people in a lot of countries have derived inspiration from our brand of 'freedom' over the last several centuries...and a lot of political leaderships have worked hard to undo some of 'damage.'

You are choosing to interpret freedom with guns and no countries are inspired by US gun laws so dont mix them together and make a abusrd argument about other countries supporting your supreme definition of freedom.

Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

If you _really_ want the low hanging fruit in so far as protecting the kiddies, outlaw bicycles. They are quite unnecessary and result in vastly more injury and death than do guns. For an extra kick, throw in snowboards and similar demonstrably dangerous sports. Maybe you should ask yourself why the gun-grabber propaganda doesn't ever mention this and why nobody has their panties in a bunch about it. Hint: it isn't about saftey for the plebs and the kiddies. It's about something else entirely.

And you are giving me this shit, I will not even answer to this , it should be obvious how this is not an argument.

Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

A metric ton of contraband is a metric ton of contraband. One is not much more difficult to smuggle than then next. People have a simplistic understanding of how 'smuggling' is typically accomplished and who the big players in the industry are.

Completely wrong. One kilogram of say cocaine gives you a profit in tens of thousands of dollars when you get it trough border, on other hand one kilogram of guns which is approximately 1 - 2 hand guns gives you a 1000$ maybe. Guns are significantly harder to smuggle ,they are made form hard steal. Any xray machine will show them up immediately even if they are in container. Further, guns can t be smuggled trough airplanes, they will show up on x-ray and if on you on the metal detector. Furthermore guns are not dividable as drugs are, drugs cant be divided 1000 of times.
To sum up drugs are at least 10x times more lucrative to smuggle, they are a lot more compact , they are dividable and harder to detect.

Quote from: tvbcof on August 31, 2018, 01:17:51 AM

I've no interest whatsoever in the U.S. becoming anything like Europe in any way. It is the last 1/4 of a turd disappearing down the toilet as far as I'm concerned. In engineering a 'backup option' for my own ass, the thought of setting up shop in any part of the EU never even crossed my mind.

If you have nationalism in mind in this discussion then you should not start it to begin with.
Do not think that Europeans have interest to go to US besides tourism , or for God Sake become like US , even more after your description of armed meth- head rapists wondering around and looking for granny's.

This discussion should also have pointed out the massive cooperation interest and influence in this matter, guns are a big business and cooperations will fight not to allow stricter gun laws even if the public wants it.