There are an abundance of violations of liberty in America and the rate at which violations are being generated is increasing. That's why we need MANY MANY MORE guns.

The guns don't create or maintain the liberty. They allow a new liberty to be built when the old one spoils.

Frankly, it's this type of thinking that makes me wish sometimes that voting and military service were mandatory.

The biggest issue with passing a law that bans citizens from owning guns (something which I as an American would wholeheartedly support) is that people like Khattharr here believe that liberty is protected and created by guns. This leads us to a very deeply ingrained gun culture. Many people here love their guns. Taking them away is tantamount to tyranny.

One question I would like to pose to people is that if liberty is equal to guns, then isn't that liberty already infringed in many ways? I don't believe that people can buy warplanes, tanks, warships, etc. So is the right to bear armaments not already violated? Why are people not allowed to own these weapons? Think closely....it's a bad idea. Same goes for owning guns, it's a bad idea to let the average person own them.

I'm still having difficulty with the liberty == guns thing. Surely if you're going to rise up against your government, the presence or absence of gun laws is kinda irrelevant? You're by definition already an insurrectionist so why should possession of guns previous to that even matter? You get them through other channels; raiding the local police station, etc. Being able to carry guns on a daily basis aside from that possibility seems a bit "wild west" to me; this European need a little more than what has been said so far.

Same goes for owning guns, it's a bad idea to let the average person own them.

Your turn to think very closely about something, now. No knee-jerk reactions, here, no blindly spouting the party line. Exactly why is it a bad idea for the "average person" to own a firearm? Are average people the ones who do bad things with them? Is it honestly your opinion that a full 50% of the population would use firearms to commit crimes or otherwise behave irresponsibly with a gun if they had one? Really? Yikes. I wonder what kind of people you keep around you, that you have that perception. I hope to God that none of them have a driver's license. Argue what you want about the accessibility of firearms making it easier to commit certain crimes or violent acts at the spur of the moment; I won't deny that. But at least accept that that is the real question at issue here, not whether or not the average person is such a fumbling moron or blood-crazed lunatic that they simply can't be trusted with a firearm. If that ever does become the main issue, if it ever gets to the point that the average citizen really can't be trusted with a firearm, then there really is no hope for us at all.

You do understand that it's not illegal to own a tank, a warship or a warplane, right? You understand it's not "The Law" that keeps those out of the average citizen's hands? It's the expense. Granted, owning the live ordnance is a bit trickier, but you are free to own all the tanks your little heart desires, assuming you can afford them.

What I find interesting is this thinking that "you would stand no chance against the US government if it ever did come to that, so why do you even need guns?" When did rolling over and taking it become the recommended plan for dealing with oppressive regimes? What does that say about someone, as a person, that they think that is the best course?

It's sort of wrong thinking to equate guns with liberty, true. If it came to that, we wouldn't stand a chance. My hunting rifle would mean exactly squat when the drones come. But it's equally wrong to think that the rights of citizens protected under the Constitution, set in law at the founding of the country, should be circumscribed purely due to the actions of the tiny minority who abuse firearms. People throw up their hands in rage and disgust when Electronic Arts encumbers their games with abusive DRM, infringing upon the rights of the majority to enjoy their legally purchased product in the name of protecting the game from copying by the pirates. The amount of righteous fury surrounding the launch of SimCity was astounding. But do the same thing with the right to own a firearm and it's not only no big deal, but it's the right thing to do? And yes, it is a valid comparison here. You have a right that's being infringed upon for the sake of "safety" due to the abuse of a minority. The only difference is one of severity: the right to enjoy a purchased video game is not a Constitutionally protected right; however, the right to bear arms is. Circumscribing an amendment to the Constitution (and one that was once considered vital enough that it came second only to the right to free speech) is just definitely not something that should be taken lightly, or enacted on the basis of knee-jerk reactions and bogus "think about the children" rhetoric coming from the same administration that has the drones and no compunction about using them.

Maybe a partial solution would be to impose much harsher penalties on criminal uses of guns. That should at least discourage the less committed criminals, which frees up resources to tackle the hard-core bad guys, who would probably have guns no matter what the law says.

NRA says no way. They steadfastly resist any and all laws which would reduce the availability of guns or increase legal penalties for any sort of gun-related action.

I have a lot of serious problems with guns being so easily available. They are extremely dangerous: a stray bullet (or even an on-target bullet) can strike a random bystander a significant distance away from the shooter even without the shooter's intent. They are not fool-proof, even for experienced gun handlers (see DailyKos's ongoing series of gun incidents. There are a lot that involve gun instructors and police as well). And they are at least moderately likely to be used improperly or in error-- a person living in a household with a gun is far more likely to be shot by that gun than an intruder is (though I think that particular point is a little overstretched).

Put these together with easy and barely restricted gun availability and you have a ton of devices capable of spraying death and serious injury around in large radii even in the hands of responsible owners. And that doesn't even begin to take into account all of the fools who play around with guns. Not to mention that they're concealable, in many states legally so, and gun owners generally bear very little liability for damage caused by their guns.

If you get drunk and kill someone with your car, that's vehicular manslaughter. If you get drunk and accidentally kill someone with your gun, there is not an equivalent charge. You are required (in the US) to carry liability insurance on your car, in recognition of how dangerous it can be even if used properly. With your gun, everyone around you bears nearly all of that risk while your own responsibility is often thin.

I'm not opposed to gun rights, in some capacity, but I do wish that more gun owners would recognize that there are valid, competing rights claims of others which often contend with those rights. There are plenty of points between a gun ban and unlimited gun freedom. The people who demand unlimited gun freedom will always seem unreasonable, because that is an unreasonable position. And while I don't think that that view is as widely held as it's sometimes portrayed, legislative pressure is consistently applied to produce that outcome.

What I find interesting is this thinking that "you would stand no chance against the US government if it ever did come to that, so why do you even need guns?" When did rolling over and taking it become the recommended plan for dealing with oppressive regimes? What does that say about someone, as a person, that they think that is the best course?

Revolutionary action against the government is inherently illegal, and it's odd to see such an action given any sort of legal support in this manner.

A better version of the argument, to my mind, is the one in which it inherently grants individuals (or groups) the license to decide "That's enough tyranny. Time to start shooting people up." While the idea of armed revolution as a safeguard might sound fine in the abstract, would you consider it valid for some group to start gunning people down at a state capital? A sudden county secession from its parent state, or the US? Under what conditions might you consider such actions to be justified and an honest, defensible application of the spirit of the 2nd Amendment?

In US history, plenty of people have taken up arms against the government because they felt the government to be intolerable. Which of these would you like to defend? If none, again, how should we apply the "2nd Amendment option" theory to any particular real-world scenario?

A better version of the argument, to my mind, is the one in which it inherently grants individuals (or groups) the license to decide "That's enough tyranny. Time to start shooting people up." While the idea of armed revolution as a safeguard might sound fine in the abstract, would you consider it valid for some group to start gunning people down at a state capital? A sudden county secession from its parent state, or the US? Under what conditions might you consider such actions to be justified and an honest, defensible application of the spirit of the 2nd Amendment?

In US history, plenty of people have taken up arms against the government because they felt the government to be intolerable. Which of these would you like to defend? If none, again, how should we apply the "2nd Amendment option" theory to any particular real-world scenario?

To me, this is the more interesting question. Believe me, I have no desire for there to ever be any kind of armed uprising. I love this country, and for the most part I love the people in it. I don't love the government, but then who does? But it's an interesting question: when would it be valid to take up arms against the government? Was it valid during the West Virginia coal wars in 1920-1921, when the government colluded with coal mining companies to use violence and murder to squelch unionization efforts, even going so far as to drop leftover explosive and gas ordnance from WWI on several towns? When families, innocent wives and children, were caught in the crossfire as agents of the coal operators machine-gunned a tent city? Were the miners justified in taking up arms against the government then? I mean, it's not like the US government has a rich history of benevolence going for it. It has often acted in as sinister and malevolent a fashion as any despotic state. What reasons have they given to inspire trust?

Still, I personally don't think it will ever come to that. For all the rhetoric, this still just isn't a bad place to live. It's getting there, maybe, but I think that the "end" (whatever form it takes, if it ever comes) won't be any kind of insurgency, any kind of armed revolt, or any kind of boot-to-neck thuggery on the part of the government. I think it will be an economic collapse. I think that the illegal manipulations of the banks, the price-fixing scams, the over-emphasis on debt and spending, will eventually trigger a fairly cataclysmic collapse. I think that shortages and hunger and the riots that such would trigger will probably be a more imminent threat than any kind of official government oppression. And in that eventuality, a gun would be a valuable resource for protecting what you have against those who would try to take it.

I, personally, don't draw the connection of guns==liberty. For me, it's guns==sport, protection of the herd against predators, and last-ditch resort for protection against violence perpetrated against me or my family should the worst happen in any way, shape or form. I'm not some kind of gun-packing gunslinger wannabe who wears a handgun on my hip and swaggers around talking about it. There really aren't many like that even around here, where guns are so prevalent. Most everyone I know locks their guns up when they aren't needed, enrolls their children in hunter safety so that they, hopefully, learn to not do anything stupid, and just continues to live their lives aware that guns are just tools that have their use, and not some kind of preternaturally malevolent force that yearns to murder children and must be restrained at all costs by the leash of Law.

Was it valid during the West Virginia coal wars in 1920-1921, when the government colluded with coal mining companies to use violence and murder to squelch unionization efforts, even going so far as to drop leftover explosive and gas ordnance from WWI on several towns? When families, innocent wives and children, were caught in the crossfire as agents of the coal operators machine-gunned a tent city? Were the miners justified in taking up arms against the government then?

But this helps bolster Hodgman's point. The gov't has vast amounts of weaponry and army. Yeah, you have guns. But so what? You're gonna get crushed anyway. The gov't is going to continue anyway. The only way to really stop stuff like that from happening is an informed citizenry that goes to their gov't (with no guns) and demand it to stop. Oddly enough this has stopped more issues in the US than armed uprisings. So if the result is the same with or without guns, then what's the point of having en masse? Why not have gun laws like Australia's (they allowed farmers and ranchers to have guns) and allow reserves where people can sport for game. Or facilities for practice?

**Playing Devil's Advocate