You're right about guns being subject to greater regulation - but for all intensive purposes, guns are banned. Yes you can still get a gun, but the process is so elaborate and tedious that most people don't bother. Given this, I'm pretty sure that most of those 7 million+ guns comes from the military and police.

Good points Joel Glidden.

One point I have to make though, is how will banning guns solve anything?

We banned drugs too, and they are still around, heck, they are probably even more popular, since they are against the law.

There is no way that stopping people from LEGALLY owning firearms is going to prevent deaths. If I cannot own a gun legally, then only criminals, who own guns illegally, will be armed. The populace is effectively disarmed, and helpless.

It is widely believed that several million Canadians own unregistered firearms that were legally owned before the current round of gun laws passed there. There are also millions of legally owned and registered firearms that are mostly used for hunting.

One has to wonder why millions of Canadians would resist registering their firearms. One also has to wonder why the Canadian government thinks their own people are so untrust worthy that they should not own guns.

The big difference between the US and Canada in gun ownership is that there are very few handguns in Canada relative to the US. Since handguns are used for the large majority of homocides in the US, their large numbers in the US could have something to do with the US having a much higher homocide rate than Canada (and the UK, France, Australia, Japan,and about every other developed nation where handguns are rare).

It could be that Americans are basically more violent than people in these other countries, but there is probably more to it than that. Easy availability of handguns might seem to be a factor.

Didn't think of this before, but now that you mention it, it makes alot of sense. Greater availability -> more guns, and so on. :)

Hmm. Yep.

I think this thread has out-lived its allotted lifespan. Everybody has had ample time to make their point and express their opinions many, many times.

If you would like to continue this discussion, please do so via e-mail or instant messenger. Thanks.