Hungary has a border with some former Yugoslavian countries. Remember some events from Yugoslavia?
And some other countries where they hate us as shit.

Yes, clearly the Yugoslavia/Hungary border is a veritable hotbed of smuggling activity. Why, even over here we hear all sorts of legendary tales of coyotes smuggling drugs through tunnels or launching them by catapults directly over the fence out in the middle of remote, desolate, well-nigh unenforceable regions of the desert and into Hungary. I mean, obviously Hungary, just like every other European nation, is a perfect model for the United States, and what works for Europe (where surely there are numerous scarcely-defensible thousand km-long stretches of wilderness land border to defend) or Australia (who obviously has even more land border providing numberless smuggling routes into the country) will most certainly work for the US. Clearly, if we just made it illegal to purchase firearms here then the border to Mexico will suddenly not be an issue, rather than providing a million and one points of entry for illegal firearms to make their way into the hands of people unscrupulous enough to ignore those laws.

You often have good points to discuss, but your rampant anti-Obama-ism sometimes makes them hard to engage. "Obama's fast and furious" indeed.

Indeed. I mean, he is Executive in Chief, right? As in, head of the Executive branch? You know, the same Executive Branch that owns the ATF? I know it's the liberal way to dodge responsibility and blame shit on Bush, but fucking come on.

As to Mexico, that the US shares a border with it isn't a good backdrop for national policy. Even if I bought the argument that it's a lawless war zone and people who live near there must have guns to ensure their safety (which I don't), that has nothing to do with the value of having guns in Iowa. If gun availability is a bad idea absent a war zone, then there are better approaches than making guns incredibly easy to get, everywhere, all the time, with no consequences for improper use.

The border with Mexico is a critical factor in national policy. When it comes to forbidding stuff, it's one of the most important factors.

It's not necessarily a lawless warzone. It's actually kind of a pleasant place, as long as you know enough to steer around the worst spots. However, it is a place that is ready, willing, able, and goddamn happy to provide what people here in the US want, people who aren't afraid to deal in shady channels to get it. Has nothing to do with Iowa. Mexican drugs (and, eventually, Mexican guns, once the current price increases due to artificial shortages induced by the administration trying to lock down guns and ammo through stockpiling) reach all the way to the Canadian border and beyond.

And you can pretend all you want that guns don't provide protection; clearly you've been listening to MSNBC who wouldn't cover a good gun story if their lives hung in the balance. I have personal first hand experience that yes, guns can and very frequently do stop crimes in progress and defend people who otherwise would be victims.

Until the Mexican border can be properly secured (and that will mean endless amounts of liberal tears; a fucking ocean of them) there is simply no way that significant gun control legislation can work here. Congress knows it. They know that we would have an enforcement nightmare on their hands to make the current war on drugs look like a schoolyard snowball fight.

To my knowledge most of the European conflicts in recent history have been between militaries, not revolutions of armed citizens. The U.S. owes it's existence in large part to those rights. It has both historical and ideological significance. You can disagree with it, but you at least need to be aware that it is a core part of our history. It is not as trivially tied to our society as it is being made out to be; it exists at the very core of it.

And for much of the history local battles would probably have involved local people defending themselves with their own weaponry. The standing armies would have consisted of normal people as well, drafted in to defend their home and country.

If you want to bring it up to modern times then in WW2 various countries would have had armed resistance movements fighting against an invading army and, in the case of the UK, things like The Home Guard which consisted of those who couldn't fight in the regular army but still took up arms to defend the country if the need came.

The point is the history of Europe IS the history of warfare, invasion, revolution, blood and death.. so to point at the war of independence (which had a large helping of regular army in it as well, you guys owe A LOT to the French, it wasn't just the brave and the few Americans who won the day) and go 'but its special!' is to show your ignorance of the history of the rest of the world which came about long before.

The funny thing is, if you read it a certain way, the 2nd Amendment somewhat supports the idea of tighter controls on weapons;

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

"Well regulated" could mean anything from 'checking which nut jobs get the guns' up to 'ensure people are training with them safely and regularly' - I suspect most people will happy skip those parts and go straight on to the bit where they are allowed to keep and bear arms and to hell with the rest.

But hey, the red could still be under the bed so better beware!

The Mexico issue is that they have an insecure northern border with a country with lax gun control, so their criminals can easily circumvent their own fairly strict gun control laws. So to hear an American complain about guns coming across the border is beyond ironic.

I don't think the flow is going to be reversed that easily, we have a ways to go between criminal demand in the US for Mexican firearms is anywhere near the criminal demand in Mexico, much less higher. It doesn't really make sense to predicate gun control on border security, since you can phase in gun control long before border security issues impinge on the number of illegal guns in the US.

The flow has already started to show signs of reversing, in the wake of DHS's buy-ups of huge stockpiles of ammunition. Mexico has plenty of laws regarding drugs, but that hasn't abated the flow of drugs. The problem is an appetite for guns in the country bordering Mexico's northern border, but it's not an appetite that is likely to go away by making guns illegal up here, any more than us making crack and heroin illegal has in the slightest blunted the appetite for crack and heroin.

It's a point that's been made over and over and over. Making guns illegal will only take the guns out of the hands of honest people. There will always be a ready supply of illegal contraband (guns, ammo, drugs, whatever people want) coming up from Mexico until such time as that border is secured strongly enough to stop the flow.

And if you know of a good way to secure thousands of miles of this...



... then I'm sure the administration would love to talk to you.

Nope. Demand for guns in Mexico is higher, and will remain higher as long as there is a higher degree of criminal activity there. I don't think you'll see some guy wanting to rob a liquor store in Phoenix outbid a guy shipping $14,000 worth of cocaine from Chihuahua to Juarez on the black market. For that to change, something will also have to change on the drug front.

Mexican ammunition is showing up in southern Cali and Arizona in the wake of shortages. Where there is demand, there will be supply; that's pretty much the story of human history. Currently, the supply is legal so the demand is easily met except in the case of shortages caused by federal buy-up. But as can be seen with the shortages induced by DHS, the supply might start originating in a different place when existing channels dry up. As soon as the supply is cut off through legal changes in the US, more and more of it will come across the border instead as it becomes more and more profitable for the smugglers to provide it.

I'm not sure what the rest of your post was trying to say. Not sure why a guy robbing a liquor store would have anything to do with $14,000 of cocaine. He'll just talk to a guy, who'll talk to a guy, who knows a guy that just brought $14,000 worth of guns up from Mexico. Same as it works with drugs.

On the other side of the fence, we have to wonder what kind of people you keep around, where it seems like a normal idea for everyone to possess a tool that has the only purpose of killing and maiming people (i.e. handguns).

As you are in Australia, where handguns are almost completely banned, I understand why you have that view.

Target shooting is extremely popular in the US. My brother is a handgun enthusiast -- that is, he collects and trades handguns. I have gone shooting with him many times. In my view, handguns are both easier and funner to shoot than rifles.

I know many people who own and regularly shoot handguns.

As for protection, I have seen many strong arguments for them. They are highly valued by because they can be easily concealed and are very maneuverable in close quarters. They are valuable both for criminals AND for non-criminals for the same reasons.

Years ago I was friends with a coin dealer, he owns a coin store just a few blocks from where I am sitting now. We were together at an event where he brought several valuable coins, one of them in particular was one of his prized rare coins valued at around $1.5M. During the closed-door meeting he passed around about $4M worth of gold and extremely rare coins to a bunch of coin collectors, including me.

He brought three of his employees to help protect his goods. Very few people at the event knew this detail, those few included the event organizers, and me; the coin dealer and his employees all have concealed weapons permits, and each one of them had two handguns, and one person was sitting near each of the building exits. There was no way anybody was going to do a smash-and-grab with those millions of dollars of coins without facing down an armed guard.

Again, the four individuals all had concealed carry permits; this means they had gone through training and police background checks and had jumped through all the legal hoops required by the state.

The weapons were concealed, and I'm guessing that only a handful of the roughly 200 people even had the slightest idea that there were people with handguns present.

Since handguns are essentially banned in Australia and other countries, the coin dealer would have had other limited options to protect his wares. If long-barreled firearems were legal the four guards could have brought those, but it would have caused a bigger disruption. He could have hired police officers, and that would have been more money than bringing in his own store employees.

In many countries citizens are allowed to bear arms in their own defense, and this was just one of many examples where citizens protect themselves in a legal way, without disrupting others, using handguns.