The U.S. government should impose stricter gun control laws in order to reduce violent crime

"A study ... found that "the United States has higher rates of firearm ownership than do other developed nations, and higher rates of homicide." -Wiki - Just because the U.S. has higher rates of homicide in no way means that it is caused by a higher rate of gun ownership. All the American Journal of Public Health is effectively doing is putting one figure beside another in the same statement in order to put a spin on a controversial issue. If anything, I would attribute the higher rates of homicide to largely flaws in our legal / prison system / police state, which serve to worsen conditions for criminals instead of correcting them in any way. "Person with a legal handgun vs. person with a legal full automatic walks into a school and starts shooting people. Who is going to commit more crime....?" "If the gun is illegal it is harder to come by, especially for deranged children or college students. Under our current laws I can walk into a store in most any state and buy a full automatic weapon. WTF do you use a full auto for?" - First off: You are grossly misinformed about fully automatic weapons. School shootings aren't being committed with full autos. There is a difference between an automatic handgun or rifle (meaning that the firearm is operated automatically as opposed to manually) and a fully automatic weapon, which fires multiple rounds with a single squeeze of the trigger. I challenge you to name one store in the U.S. that anyone can go into and buy a fully automatic weapon. Full autos aren't even legal to possess without a special federal permit that very few people can obtain. Secondly: Firearm prohibition will not work, just like alcohol and drug prohibition haven't worked. The assumption that "If the gun is illegal it is harder to come by, especially for deranged children or college students" isn't true at all. If guns were outlawed, they would be obtained the same way illegal drugs are. A person who's compelled to commit mass murder isn't going to change their mind because the weapon they plan to use is illegal, and / or a little harder to come by. Third: In regard to the analogy of a person walking into a classroom with a handgun vs a fully automatic, if a person is walking into a classroom with any gun, does it really matter how many rounds they can get off per squeeze? It's a matter of time and ammunition. If there are thirty people in a class room, and the aggressor has enough ammo to kill sixty and intends to, what do you think the end result will be? Fourth: To address your question "WTF do you use a full auto for?", the Second Amendment was intended to preserve the right of the people to keep and bear arms so that we may protect ourselves from tyrannical oppression. In the event that tyranny would ever befall our country in the future, we're not going to be able to fend it off with pea shooters and shotguns if the aggressors are using more sophisticated weaponry. Additionally, in certain areas of the country like LA, gangs frequently carry illegal automatic weapons. If you happened to be a person living in an area that had to deal with gang violence, would you rather have the option to possess weaponry as sophisticated as the gangs that were terrorizing your neighborhood, or would you opt for lesser weaponry or none at all? I guess you could call the cops and wait for them to arrive, but there's not a lot they're going to be able to do for you when the incident is already over. It's a matter of proactive vs reactive, and which side of the fence you prefer to be on. "Your fallacy assumes that because one thing happens then it must have a link to another. This would be like saying, "The rooster crows when the sun rises, thus the sun rises because the rooster crows" Its simply not true. Another example, because sometimes people die when they are wearing seat belts therefor seat belts don't work. You assume that these two incidents are the rule but it isn't true, they are the exception to the rule." - The point I'm trying to make is that many of the places that have the most stringent gun control laws in the US are vulnerable to violent crime, e.g. college campuses. "Also, concerning Virginia Tech. What would have been done if there were no gun control laws? Are you suggesting college students should carry fire arms?" - I am absolutely claiming that students should be able to carry firearms. There would be far less incentive for someone to walk into a classroom and start shooting people if they knew they would die before they got more than a round or two off. The same applies to other aspects of society as well. "The constitution was created in 1971! Times change, when the Bill of rights was made the second amendment meant that you have the right to keep a musket for defense. It was created in a time when the police force was almost non-existent, in a time when people were expanding west past the confines of the law. Our for-fathers could have never imagined the world as it is today especially fully automatic rifles." - As I stated above, the Second Amendment was intended to preserve the right of the people to keep and bear arms so that we may protect ourselves from tyrannical oppression, which after numerous geopolitical events such as WWII, it is every bit as relevant today if not more so. At the time when the constitution was written, personal protection was a given. I seriously doubt that if our forefathers could've anticipated that our rights to personal protection in 2008 would be eroded to the point that Americans were having debates such as this, they would've amended the constitution to appropriately address the issue. Ask some of the people who have served in war what they think about gun control, and then ask yourself if founding fathers, who fought and died for our rights, would have a difference in opinion. Not to stray too far from the topic at hand because we could have an entire debate on the issue, but as far as the police force being non-existent in the eighteenth century, I could make the argument that the police state is in-part responsible for the increase in violent crime. "Who reading this debate has heard of deranged murders traveling in groups so large that fully automatic weapons are needed to contain them?" - I've heard of some; such as the mafia, street gangs, biker gangs, etc. Many of the people who do obtain a federal permit to legally possess a fully automatic weapon are eligible to do so because of the fact that they live in areas with high street gang activity, so that they can put up a fair fight should a time come when they would need to defend themselves from such threats. "Someone pulls a pistol in a school cafeteria and starts blasting away. Another guy sees this and pulls his own pistol. A third guy looks around and notices the two guys blasting away at each other and decides to help the guy he likes the most. Guy four notices his friend being shot at and pulls his pistol. Guys five six and seven decide to fight for justice, sadly they don't know who started the fight so they are shooting everyone with a pistol." A) What sense would it make to anyone with an I.Q. of over 25 to go into a cafeteria intending on killing someone when they know many or all of the people in there were or could be packing a firearm? B) Historically, similar situations have occurred on numerous occasions. Think about the exact same scenario playing out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries if a person walked into a bar full of people carrying a gun intending to kill many or all of the people in there. Do you think they'd all panicked and kill each other? - If you need more refutation of full gun control, research the Nazi's during WWII. Also, Do you really need a link to illustrate the fact that prohibition doesn't work because it's impossible to completely police due to the fact that any of the above can be easily obtained on the black market?