Foolish is right, but it's the age-old explanation when gun control laws fail. The problem--the anti-gun whackos say--is that guns are available elsewhere and they're being smuggled into our country (city, state, whatever). What these people seek is a world-wide ban on all guns, which is completely impossible and even THINKING that it might be realistic goes way beyond foolish.

What they choose to turn a blind eye to (and this is a clear case of willful ignorance) is that this is proof that when you outlaw guns the law-abiding citizens will be deprived of them, but the criminals will still want them and will still find some way to get them. Somewhere in the world someone will always have them available, and they are an inherently easy thing to smuggle (they can't be sniffed out, like drugs, and if you break them down to component parts and mix them in with other tooling components they would be practically impossible to detect with X-ray).

Besides that, even if you could miraculously stop all smuggling of guns (and it would take a true miracle), they are a fundamentally low-tech device, easy enough to make in a modestly equipped home machine shop. Have you seen the Jimmy Stewart movie on the life of "Carbine Williams?" It is a fictionalized version, of course, but still based on history. Williams actually built a working, firing prototype of the .30 caliber carbine with hand tools and scrap metal while he was in prison! In fact, every year thousands of hand-made guns are confiscated from prisoners. We can't stop guys in prison from making guns out of scrap steel, is there truly anyone dumb enough to believe that criminals who are NOT in prison couldn't find a way to make them???

No, I don't think "foolish" even begins to capture the depth of deliberate stupidity that these people are practicing.

"I'm not Canada bashing"
Maybe not Bitmasher but it seems to me that Canada has been doing quite a lot of U.S. bashing lately.

Can we blame Canada for the increase in left-wing nutjobs running around the US? Pamela Anderson (PETA's most famous supporter) came from Canada. I suggest we tighten up our borders if they tighten theirs.

Scapegoating has long been a highly effective tool employed as a sleight of hand to get people looking outward rather than inward. Rather than address criticism of failed policies, it's easier to build rage at an external target. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il have been doing it for decades.

If we could just get rid of all the guns in the world, we could all sit down and sing "Kumbaya" in glorious peace and harmony. Ah, yes...the good old days when there wasn't a gun to be found anywhere in the world. We all remember what peaceful, happy times those were, don't we? Let's see...Roman conquest of the known world, Vikings, Ghengis Khan, the Crusades, the Inquisition, feaudalism, the Dark Ages, human sacrifices in the Americas...and that doesn't even address more modern gun-free utopias that practiced cannibalism into the 20th century.

Pamela Anderson was quoted as saying something to the effect of ''men hunt because their equipment isn't working right.'' That's not a direct quote, but most of the content is exact.

Not to bash Pamela Anderson or anything, but in this case my comment on the above statement would be ''CONSIDER THE SOURCE!''

It must take brains to marry a guy like Tommy Lee and supposedly catch Hepatitis C from him. She MUST be an expert on men and their ''equipment!''

It's just a big game of "blame someone else", Not our fault" etc. and it works both ways. When canada had the first "mad cow", Cnn was reporting it an an epedemic. When mad cow showed up in the USA, I forget what state, CNN reported it as an"isolated case"
And of course how can Paul Martin say that the Canadian Gun registry was a total Liberal screw up, when he can blame it on our friends and neighbours to the soutrh.
But regardless, we still granted Santa Claus free and unrestricted access to our Air Space from Dec 24-25th(both day inclusive) so he could deliver your firearms. We areso foregiving..

This thread spurred me into doing some digging online. Since the UK and Australia already have stringent gun control laws/bans, I thought it might be good to check and see how those countries are faring. Interestingly, not so well. In spite of the general population being stripped of their guns, crime is increasing at staggering rates. Since both countries are basically islands, without convenient borders to smuggle guns across it made me wonder who they blame.

This is an older article from 2001:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21902
Describes that England and Australia top the USA in violent crime in spite of their stringent gun control laws.

Another article about the gun-control movement in trouble internationally. From Britain to Australia to Canada, promises of lower crime rates from gun control have turned into historic increases in crime.
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/IBDGunConFailure.html

I wasn't aware that the Canadian government was contemplating suing American gun manufacturers for their increase in crime.
The following article is from the Canada Free Press:
"It is hard to see how American companies who sell a legal product in the United States can be held responsible for their product getting past our customs officers. Beefing up the border might be a better solution but it won’t get as many votes as blaming the Americans will."
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/weinreb102505.htm

Last night I watched a 20/20 piece on ABC by John Stossel. It caught my attention because the teaser line was "are guns always bad?" and I was expecting a piece slamming guns, but to my surprise Stossel stated that crime is decreasing in the US and has been for the last 15 years. Gun ownership by private individuals is NOT causing more crime, in fact the reverse is happening.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123606
Scroll down to Myth #5, this is a very abbreviated version of what was on 20/20.

The press is having a heyday with all the violence and gun control gone awry in Canada. Do a search on google, you'll run into lots of articles and editorials from Canadian publications. Most are slamming the government for what they've done to their own Canadian citizens over the past 11 years.
Here's one from the Edmonton Sun:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Commentary/2005/08/28/1192061.html
From Zwire includes some stats about Australia:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1998&dept_id=460503&newsid=158319...

Another article about the blame being placed on the USA
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lott200508190817.asp

Proposed Canadian ban on handguns
"...critics say the guns used in most violent crimes are already illegal, so a ban would do little."
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=474cb9aa-3439-4e75-9c78...

What a big bummer for our Canadian neighbors. It doesn't matter if you're American, Australian or Canadian, criminals are the same everywhere and they will still have their guns regardless of what the laws state. Here in the USA I can arm myself if I choose to and at least make the criminal wonder if I'm armed or not.

Good luck to our neighbors. Hope your politicians open their eyes - very soon!

It happens in the states too. D.C. is a good example:

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/CamEdwards/2006/01/04/180977.html

Marion Barry was a spearhead of gun grabbers during his hey day in D.C.

It's not all that it seems in the media. For example:
Al Muir, an opponent to firearm registration(lives three miles from me) and members of his coalition went to every province in Canada,media in tow, with an unregistered rifle wanting to get arested and charged so they could fight it in court and guess what...no takers. Theyheld a skeet shoot last year,unregistered firearms only, police, media invited.....well at least the media showed up.
And as far as bannibng handguns, not going to happen and would be a total waste of time and money
Our criminal will talk to your criminals and simply trade "guns for BC Bud"
I think that's addressed in North Amercan Free Trade Agreement.

Bitmasher, I read about Marion Barry getting robbed a couple days ago and just about died laughing. His funniest comment was about how it "hurt his feelings..." that he was even robbed. I believe its now been 20 years since handguns have been banned in DC and its obvious it hasn't helped or worked at all.

Hammer1, since I don't live in Canada, I don't know what the real life experiences are with owning or buying firearms in your country. All I know is what I've read & heard via the media. I believe I read a while back that Toronto was contemplating banning them completely. Cities here in the US (like DC) have banned handguns, and it does not make a dent in the crime rate.

100% true cow gal i am from montreal and they should spend more time worrying about illegal guns on the black market and leave the law abiding gun owners alone!!!!