Hey, I’m sure even some of the esteemed commenters on this site are tools, too. No names, no pack drill. 😉

For whatever reason, some folks are just totally invested in the idea that you can treat symptoms and cure the problem.

The “problem” – human violence, stupidity, and aggression – can’t be “cured”. All that can be done is ongoing management of the condition. That’s what gun control is about.

China, the UK, Australia . . .they all have draconian gun laws.

If you mean by draconian, that guns need to be registered and you need a valid reason to own one, then yes they are draconian. (‘valid’ reasons include being a member of a gun club, hunting, vermin control etc. – self protection is not a valid reason.)

In Australia they registered all the guns and then made everyone turn their guns in and destroyed them decades ago.

Not quite. In 2007 5.2% of Australian adults owned one or more guns. (“Licensees and Registered Firearms in Australia(SSAA report)”). Compare this to 30% of US households having one or more guns, which is likely to translate to a significantly lower percent of US adults owning a gun.

And, yet, there was a shooting a couple of weeks ago.

With all those guns (including the 1500 or so guns stolen annually) there is bound to be the odd shooting. As pointed out above the rate of shooting homicides is much lower than many other places. The rate of accidental shootings is also much much lower.

And a huge riot where white people came armed with aluminum ball bats to teach the brown people a lesson.

I missed much of the exchange but this does seem to be a bit of a non-sequitur. In any case one can control guns, but it is much more difficult to control stupidity.

China, the UK, Australia . . .they all have draconian gun laws. In Australia they registered all the guns and then made everyone turn their guns in and destroyed them decades ago. And, yet, there was a shooting a couple of weeks ago. And a huge riot where white people came armed with aluminum ball bats to teach the brown people a lesson.

Hmmm…Checking the stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Rate in the US:     5.4 per 100,000 (2008)
Rate in Australia:  1.2 per 100,000 (2008)
Rate in the UK:     1.5 per 100,000 (2008)
Rate in China:      2.4 per 100,000 (2006)

It looks quite a bit safer in all of the mentioned countries with draconian gun laws than in the US with it’s ‘wild west’ approach to to gun laws. I’m not sure I trust China’s numbers, but they are what we have to work with.

I mean, I’ve broken off a friendship over political disagreements too, but 1) there was considerably more justification (I am talking about someone who literally advocated genocide as a rational and proportionate response to the 9/11 attacks but condemned premarital sex on the basis of “morality,” and who, when backed into the corner on her Ann Coulter Fangirl routine by the observation that Coulter had stated that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, agreed with that position rather than contradict the party line) and 2) I allowed the conversations to taper off and eventually neglected to inform her when I changed screen names rather than lashing out publicly.

So, yeah, your crazy ex-friend, if she’s crazy enough to follow up on it, can come here and see that she reminds me of someone who advocates genocide.

Dude, grow the fuck up.

Ahem…

Facebook is for fucking children and politicians.

I take it you speak from experience?