I think you should use two hands.

First, the weapons available to the public today CANNOT automatically fire bullets in fast succession, thats why they are called semi automatic, one trigger pull=one bullet.

Under oppression..means it can happen again...and who did our founding fathers shoot thoes guns against? Their own government...How many countries have had to fight their own governments? Every single one of them..And some of them Multiple Times..EVERY KNOWN GOVERNMENT HAS FAUGHT AGAINST ITS PEOPLE AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER....REMEMBER THE CIVIL WAR ...Government against its people...It happened once it can happen again...only thing you can do is prepare and pray it never happens...There will be thoes prepared and thoes who are not.

I am all for background checks, but I do not think the government should restrict which guns we can or cannot have.

Record sales of guns,ammo is PREPARATION OF PROHIBITION...EACH TIME A SHOOTING HAPPENS And we will have just as bad a war with gun prohibition as we do with Drug prohibition..Many will Die

The issue with gun control laws is that they have little or no effect against the people that commit the crimes. Unstable people and criminals who choose to harm others will always figure out a way to do so. This is not anything new. It is our right to protect our ourselves, family, property and others by what ever means necessary. Whether it be a stick, stone or .45 with a double stack clip. I feel that if there was as much focus on training and understanding of self defense the criminals that prey on the law abiding citizen would think twice about approaching someone to cause harm or rob them.
Now I don't believe that anyone should be able to go out and have a gun without proper training and I feel it should be more then a week of nights or a weekend to qualify you to have a weapon. You should have to qualify for each weapon that you choose to own, be it a pistol, shot gun or rifle, learning all aspects of that particular gun. It's uses for hunting, combat, self defense etc. It should be no different then getting a drivers lisence.

Even with tons of gun laws on the books already, there is still gun violence. Why? Some people are evil and you can't legislate that out of existence.

Agree ^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^
This simply...is a debate that has no end or resolution to me. People need to change...its just that cut and dry. We can b*tch until were all blue in the face, it wont change it.

if no laws will change an evil person from killing, then lets do away with speed limits, stop lights & stop signs, sending children to school, yelling fire in movie houses, ect, ect. we must start somewhere. just because some people go crazy, we must have some of us " normal " human beings retain some control. don't surender, hang in there, life is worth living.

No matter what they do to try to keep guns from the bad guys, they will always beable to get them. If someone tried to come into my home, we have the right to defend ourselves. Its the people who kill, the bad people, that live in darkness not the guns. I agree with Doug, more laws just give the bad people more laws to break.

What we are seeing with the proposed anti 2A gun laws right now is the perfect example of being RULED versus REPRESENTED.

The biggest problem I see is that we already have Federal laws with stiff penalties but as soon as an ex felon or a gangbanger is arrested with a gun they are released just a short time later with little or no jail time. If the laws were enforced to the limit it wouldn't take long for the drug dealers and the rest of the law breakers to look for a different place to practice their law breaking ways.

No matter what controls you have the bad guy will always get guns. If you want to stop shootings you have to show there are consequences if you shoot someone or rob someone at gunpoint.The hands of the police are tied when our courts let people off with a slap on the wrist ,bring back the death penalty ,but make sure they are guilty with out a shadow of doubt,(not like Chicago cops)

I voted "NO" on the background check question and it says there are '0' "no" votes. I wonder what else about this poll is flawed.

The government continues to disarm its citizens, yet they are stockpiling guns, bullets and coffins through Homeland Security and FEMA.
http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/02/why-is-government-stockpiling-guns-ammo/

Listen the constitution says the military can not turns its weapons on the citizens of the US but the federal and state governments got around it by starting the national guard they are armed, trained,and used as the military they have the right to fire on the American people. the way this country is going I can see the government trying to take over the citizens therefore I wanna be able to arm and protect myself from them. I wanna be able to protect myself from the gangs. The good people who own guns are not the problem its the bad people who do. I dont trust criminal and I dont trust any form of government. I want the right which I do to arm myself. I do think people need to undergo background checks before owning guns

I think that the historical evaluation in this article is irrelevant. We have to remember that the founding fathers wanted there to be no restrictions on gun ownership. Hence the reason the statement in the 2nd Amendment "Shall Not Be infringed" was included. If we extrapolate the statement in the article that the Founding Fathers never imagined that weapons "...can be loaded with magazines containing 10 or more rounds, can automatically fire bullets in fast succession and, in some cases, can literally spray hundreds of rounds in a matter of seconds." to include the Right to Free Speech, they never thought of computers, electronic media, Social Networks or even the modern rotary printing press. Did they believe that the writer would have the right to post these comments for millions of Americans to read?

" literally spray hundreds of rounds in a matter of seconds" You would think a so called journalist would know what 'literally' means. I'd love to find a weapon that can spray hundreds of rounds in seconds. Karen, this is a shoddy attempt at an objective poll. I would urge you to learn more about firearms from quality instructors instead of repeating what you hear on the news or from politicians.

Both conservatives and liberals in America operate with firmly held beliefs as to "the why" of this problem. And the reason neither can find their way out of the box toward a real solution is because, in fact, they're both half right.
The right believes that the Founding Fathers, through some sort of divine decree, have guaranteed them the absolute right to own as many guns as they desire. And they will ceaselessly remind you that a gun cannot fire itself – that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Of course, they know they're being intellectually dishonest (if I can use that word) when they say that about the Second Amendment because they know the men who wrote the constitution just wanted to make sure a militia could be quickly called up from amongst the farmers and merchants should the Brits decide to return and wreak some havoc.

My liberal compatriots will tell you if we just had less guns, there would be less gun deaths. And, mathematically, that would be true. If you have less arsenic in the water supply, it will kill less people. Less of anything bad – calories, smoking, reality TV – will kill far fewer people. And if we had strong gun laws that prohibited automatic and semi-automatic weapons and banned the sale of large magazines that can hold a gazillion bullets, well, then shooters like the man in Aurora would not be able to shoot so many people in just a few minutes.
But this, too, has a problem. There are plenty of guns in Canada (mostly hunting rifles) – and yet the annual gun murder count in Canada is around 200 deaths. In fact, because of its proximity, Canada's culture is very similar to ours – the kids play the same violent video games, watch the same movies and TV shows, and yet they don't grow up wanting to kill each other. Switzerland has the third-highest number of guns per capita on earth, but still a low murder rate.
So – why us?

Smitty the framers of the 2nd amendment were merely men , they drafted this to protect the American people of the time from the current threat , the English and the oppressive acts they intended to perpetrate , some common sense is needed Smitty, this is only an educated opinion as are all of the other comments posted here , I do though thank you for the and welcome any logical debate , conversely Smitty can you show show any proof that was not their intent ?

I made no statement about what the intent of the writers of the second amendment was. You did, proclaiming it to be fact. The real fact is that you are spouting your own opinion and nothing more.

I suggest you read the Federalist Papers.

What gets me is the fact that I keep hearing from the anti-gun crowd that "We don't want to take away ALL your guns, but we just want sensibile compromise." Let's talk about compromise:

1934 - National Firearms Act
1938 - Federal Firearms Act
1968 - Gun Control Act
1986 - LEO Protection Act
1990 - Crime Control Act
1994 - Brady Bill
1994 - Assault Weapons Ban

These are just the major gun control acts that have been passed, not taking into account more minor gun control laws or state level laws and regulations. That's a lot of compromise right there, yet the anti-gun people always want more.

It always seems that the low information anti-gunners always like to tout the dreaded "semi-automatic" term. Most guns produced in the last 100 years will fit the definition of semi-automatic. For those of you that don't know, semi-automatic defines that once the weapon is fired, it ejects the spent casing and loads the next round into the chamber so that it is READY to fire. The trigger MUST BE PULLED AGAIN TO FIRE THE NEXT ROUND. This is in contrast to fully automatic weapons, in which holding the trigger back will keep firing the weapon in rapid succession until it is either out of ammunition or the operator releases the trigger. Fully automatic weapons are ALREADY ILLEGAL unless you have a special license to sell these to qualified organizations.

More gun laws only infringe on law abiding citizens - criminals are not lining up to turn in their armaments.

As far as real world solutions, we should all be taking a good look at Aurora IL. They went from 25 murders in 2003 to 2 murders in 2011 and ZERO murders in 2012.
They did it using existing laws and a few local ordinances, community involvement, and good police work.
http://www.aurora-il.org/policedepartment/crime_free_housing/index.php

Phillip seriously ?? ok then you asked :
From Gazzen, from Latin “earthly edge”, or end of the earth, abbreviated to gaz (literally 28810 ancient Greek miles, been one full revolution of the globe) So how much is a Gazillion? a Gazillion has (28810 x 3) zeros thus
a Gazillion has 86430 zeros : ) as far as you thinking i have no idea how a weapon works, why yes i do , i have several at my disposal currently and i have been expertly trained to operate them all (also im a wicked good shot) and no i was not in the military . also i am not a paranoid John Wayne wanna be who is under the DELUSION that my 2nd Amendment rights are currently in anyway being infringed upon , the emotion in the national debate comes overwhelmingly from the under educated angry old white men and their submissive women on the far right , they actually believe that what protects their rights isn't laws, or courts, it's that they have a gun. They think that's what keeps the government from going too far. Without guns, Obama would become a dictator and force everyone to gay marry, but he can't because a guy in Mississippi named Billy Bob has an .22

Illinois can't even comply with current laws.They seriously lag in reporting those with mental illness to the Feds, enabling people who have been adjudicated as being mentally ill to be able to pass background checks.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/illinois-misfires-on-mental-illness-gun-checks-missouri-s-on/article_216fcd80-0667-5420-a963-d65c035c7b09.html

People really think more laws is the answer?

Phillip im doing my best man to keep up with your opinions , but its getting more and more difficult. So the nuclear family hasnt been disintegrating anywhere else in the world ?
FACT: In 2006, there were 30,896 gun deaths in the U.S:
12,791 homicides (41% of total deaths)
16,883 suicides (55% of total deaths)
642 unintentional shootings (2% of total deaths)
360 from legal intervention (1.2% of total deaths)
220 from undetermined intent (.8% of total deaths).
(Numbers obtained from CDC National Center for Health Statistics mortality report online, 2009.)
FACT: Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 2004 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:
5 people in New Zealand
37 people in Sweden
56 people in Australia
184 people in Canada
19 people in Japan
73 people in the UK
11,344 people in the United States
Something in our great country is BROKEN and until its fixed we all need to try and come up with some answers as to HOW TO REPAIR IT. or we can sit back and hide behind our 2nd amendment right and do NOTHING .

Phillip, the Gazillion thing went over your head, TWICE , like a low flying crop duster , your Joliet is beginning to show.

Your statistics are not taking into account the difference in population or the number of other violent crimes.

Here's something I read in a British newspaper.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25671/Violent-crime-worse-Britain-US.html#axzz2Jy7r1HkS

"According to the figures released yesterday, 3.6 per cent of the population of England and Wales were victims of violent crime in 1999 - second only to Australia, where the figure was 4.1 per cent.

Scotland had a slightly lower rate of violence, at 3.4 per cent.

In the U.S., only 2 per cent of the population suffered an assault or robbery."

I'm not here to debate the second amendment. Is the real issue reducing crime or is it taking away second amendment rights?

The issue should be reducing crime. There is a lot that can be done by enforcing existing laws.

My statistics are reporting "Gun Violence" which is what this topic here is based on , it takes only rudimentary math skills to determine the differences in population , the UK has approx 62 million people , the USA , approx 320 million , for the USA to be on average with the UKs 73 Gun Murders per year we need to be at 292 a FAR cry from our current 11,000 plus , I am not including suicides , we kill with guns in this country like NO where else in the developed world hands down , that fact is not debatable or arguable . Whether it be enforcing existing laws or adding some new ones with more serious bite , this gun violence epidemic has to addressed , most thinking gun control advocates NEVER make this a 2nd amendment debate , but it certainly is always the basis for the far right argument

you wanna address the problem look at the states that have the right to carry crime is down. It's not the lawabiding citizen who went through the hoops to get a gun it's the bad people the gang memebers the robbers the rapists the drug dealers and those are the ones who need to be addressed not the normal person. In Illinois I have to take the chance of being robbed or murdered and if Im with my family I have no means to protect myself unless I beg the bad guy for mercy. We need the right and we do already have the right to carry and defend. Nowadays its them or us. The bad guys keep getting slaps on the wrists and the laws dont protect. We need to protect ourselves..The fact that this is even a debate is unreal look at how much texas has changed since the right to carry went into play..And yes I do believe the US government is the new threat to the American people just as the British were

The topic is "Tell Us What You Think about More Gun Control Laws"
not "Gun Violence which is what this topic here is based on".

The DOJ's own figures from that last assault weapon ban have already proven that re-enacting the ban will do nothing for the real world problem of crime.
If Chief McCarthy were really looking for solutions, he would have done better to spend time in Aurora instead of D.C.

What you have here is a classic case of the Feds blowing smoke up everyone's rear-end and promising that everything will be better with more laws. It won't.

Whenever I enter into a debate on this topic I cannot help but draw the comparison of the right wing obsessed gun fanatics in this country to Ralphie in "A Christmas Story".
"Flick says he saw some grizzly bears near Pulaski's candy store"!
Or Ralphie on the prowl for Black Bart in his 9 year old imagination's fantasy as rationale for wanting his Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas , ensuing in his day dream of using Ole Blue in protection of his cowering family to mow down Black Bart and his gang who find there way to Ralphies house on Cleveland St , but then the end and inevitably the reality of Ralphie shooting his OWN eye out !
Will there be the possibility that one day Black Bart may come a gunnin for ya ??
yes , its remotely possible , but the FACT is that you are FAR more likely to shoot your eye out , or worse , that of some completely innocent person who happens to be at the wrong end of your fear and paranoia because your just itchin to justify the reason or lack thereof to own a gun .

Guns scare me and I do not want them around me or my family
I was not raised with guns so it is hard for me to understand the need for a gun
I just know the damage a gun can do is something avoidable

Barb , you are lucky to have had minimal exposure to guns , your post is honest and genuine , commit on your current path , guns do far more harm than good , that fact is not debatable , unfortunately our society is so flush with guns they have become a grotesque but necessary evil .
Stay safe

Chris, seriously? I live in a small country town where guns are a part of every day life, i have several in my closet right now, that doesnt mean that i am going to kill people. And also, if you take away guns from the good people, you are just leaving us defenseless to the bad guy who got his gun either after months of careful planning, or off the black market. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Lock up the insane and mentally ill, and i am sure the crime rate will go down. Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens will only increase crime, just look at CHICAGO!!! In my school, we have a few students who are "off" and we are threatened every day by their easily provoked behavior. Kids are terrified of them due to the fact that they are not right in the head. People can get weapons anywhere, and taking them away from good people will only allow bad guys to sell weopans on the black market. The PROHIBITION is where this is headed, and Al Capone made millions of dollars and killed many in his underground empire selling the BANNED!!! alcohol. And he would have continued had he not been busted on his TAXES!!! What if we do the same with guns, and ban them? Maybe the next guy pays his taxes and our entire nation will be left to a psychotic weaponsdealer while we cower under his heel with no way of fighting back. The point is, the bad guy will always have a weapon, and if you take guns from us, we will surely be at the mercy of some mentally ill man with a gun.

SMIT really ? Thanks , I'm MUCH smarter after your post ! why haven't I thought of all your points earlier ? And the Al Capone analogy, whew , try reading my other posts in this thread , theres lots more than you've read , obviously

Have you ever even held a gun chris?

I can't believe no one has picked it up yet. Chris is no more than a Change Agent for the Democrats. Otherwise Chris is unemployed and has nothing better to do than spout Democrat talking points.

This isn't so much a conversation as it is propaganda enforcement.

RIGHT ON PHILLIP!!!!!!!!!!

Smitty I am not flattering myself as you may think , I was trying to find some common ground , As i have known all through your angry posts you are a typical right wing NRA funding jack ass , limited intelligence and tolerance for a conflicting idea , not engaging a dipshit like you will be my constructive action here , "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands" go get em colonel !

Philip you are too far gone to engage ,

SMIT , maybe you can understand this , you need to stay away from these debates until you are a bit more educated , you are way outgunned . You will be fair prey to anyone with even the most basic debating skills , but rest assured you will be ok in this one as is in real life , there are more idiots here than not . That's why I DO have guns as protection from stupidity .

Only people who are truly offended would use such harsh words. Smitty, Jax, and even my girlfriend are- as we type- laughing at your posts (and so is her dad) . And as for intelligence, do you have kids chris? One who was/is a junior in highschool? Because i am in the top ten percentile of our entire nation for my grade, probably much smarter than your kid. As of now, i have the oppurtunity with my test scores to go to any college of my choosing, with many scholarships set before me with UIL and such. I can easily go to a freshman debate class and get way more competition than you are providing. But why would i? I can compete against SMART kids.

Controling ammunition would be our best bet because you cant shoot a gun without it...

Maybe they should find a way to control CRAZY PEOPLE!!! I don't care what kind of gun you have, it can't commit murder without some crazy person pulling the trigger.

All these posts and one person out of all of them is for more gun control. It is laughable that he wants to talk about stats. If he wants to look strictly at the stats he woe be pro gun. SO BOW ABOUT A BIG F U FIR CHRIS AS YOU ARE THE IDIOT OF THE WEEK!!

So, I've carefully read through all these posts. I am not a gun owner. I have never been in the military. The real truth here is that a citizen should have the right to defend his life, his family's life, and his property. We live in a world where guns exist on the street. To be able to protect himself, the citizen needs the same fire power that is potentially going to be used against him. Until our world society figures out how to rid itself of all deadly weapons (not likely) then a balance of power must be maintained. For the first time in my life, I'm considering becoming a gun owner.

Good call Larry

We all can see that guns in the wrong people's hands can be dangerous. So can airplanes flying into skyscrapers and rental trucks full of fertilizer parked outside a federal building. This is the world we live in. It is senseless to not allow people the right to protect themselves. We still are a free country and we should have the ability to move about freely and safely. If you don't want a gun, don't get one. Take a look at the real statistics, and be wary of people feeding you information. Most of the media think we are all sheep. Consider your sources, and look at several sources before speaking, or writing. Especially if you write a column for a news paper. The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them-Robert Frost.

I said the other day that new laws weren't the answer if our state doesn't enforce current laws. I also provided a link about how far behind our state was in providing info on mentally ill people to the fed database, enabling them to pass background checks.

Here's something I read in today's Sun Times:

The governor also is expected to push circuit clerks across the state to more thoroughly report to the state when someone is adjudicated as mentally ill. That information is used by the Illinois State Police in screening gun-permit applicants.
While required to pass along such information to the state, only 22 of Illinois’ 102 counties did so in 2012, according to the source familiar with Quinn’s speech.

ONLY 22 OUT OF 102 COUNTIES FORWARDED THE INFO WHEN SOMEONE WAS DECLARED MENTALLY ILL!
How are more laws going to fix problems like that?

http://www.suntimes.com/18036173-418/quinn-wants-to-ban-concealed-weapons-in-highly-traveled-public-places.html