Wiredgeek Wrote:*grumble*That is an awful analogy. You could use the same argument to make for legal private possession of absolutely everything and anything, from nuclear missiles to massive quantities of anthrax to aircraft carriers.
If owning a gun makes me criminal, I guess owning a penis makes me a rapist, and owning a fist makes me a mugger.
While Bob has noted in the past that he does actually believe private citizens should have the right to possess nuclear weapons, it is not a view shared by most people. The legality of possessing anything is always weighed against the harm
that possession could do to society, which is why most first world
countries ban or severely restrict the ability to carry handguns (and sometimes all guns).
I'm not really anti-gun-ownership (I'm very ambivalent about it), but if you're going to let private citizens tote handguns, then they should be required to be extensively trained, tested and certified in their use. And anyone convicted of using them irresponsibly should have them taken away for life. That's not really much more onerous than the laws about driving cars, and I see no reason why handguns should not be more heavily regulated than cars.