Duke,

I understand what you are up against. For some on the anti-gun side, they just don't see a "need" for guns, they are alarmed at the misdeeds, they think that if nobody had guns then the problem would go away.

And many of them would be the first to coddle troubled people who might pose a risk, not want them identified and singled out, and have no solutions for how to put troubled people on a positive path. Heck, some of them would have cried out if the warning signs from some of the shooters, and before guns were part of the picture, had been pulled into any sort of mandatory treatment.

And as you know, parents don't want their troubled children stigmatized, just treated as "normal."

And if you point out the demographics of much of the criminal misuse of guns, it makes you prejudiced.

The mentality of intolerance and confiscation of things that certain people simply do not like is surprising in what is supposed to be a liberal democracy.

You might recall that some of the anti-ivory legislation in the states called for an outright ban on possession per se--no matter how old the ivory and how far removed from the killing of modern elephants. Any person could report that someone owns ivory and law enforcement could come for them! I don't know if this actually went into effect, but it is a totalitarian mentality.

Irrationality prevails as a new measure is offered up to surpass and outdo measures suggested by other people. These things gather momentum, like any mass movement, and hysteria overtakes reason.

It has happened in many places--consider the French Revolution (or any revolution for that matter, but the Great Terror came to define the French Revolution), the rise of Fascism and the Nazis, the McCarthy era, and modern China where they score the social conformity and reliability of their citizens!

Larry