So what would you suggest exactly that California hasn't already got? It's got licensing (via the safety certificate that has to be renewed every five years), registration, a ban (essentially) on new models of handguns, a one-gun-a-month-law, testing of people, a ten-day waiting period together with a comprehensive background check, a ban on private transfers except through licensed dealers, all transactions of firearms and ammunition have to be in person, a ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds, a broadly written ban on "assault weapons", a ban on people having guns who even go in on a psychiatric hold let alone are committed to a mental hospital and more besides.

Like I said it's actually more restrictive than Canada at this point, but he still had them and he still did it, so perhaps it's time to look at other alternatives.

Slightly patchy statistics. Aren't there annual stats? World crime rates are irrelevant.

No there are not, because the Home Office changed the reporting method to basically the UK tax year so they could fiddle them, imo. Those stats are for England & Wales btw, the not the whole UK.

Crime has gone down across the developed world, I don't think it is irrelevant, big topic in criminology as to why it is happening.

It's the better angels of our nature.

Sorry

You are correct. Shoot a soldier dead and you have taken one soldier out the conflict. Injure one, and you have taken 3 out.

The vast majority of weapons are not designed to kill; not these days. They can kill, just as a hammer can

The key to effective killing power in bullets designed for hunting or for self defence is controlled expansion, with typically a lead nose on the projectile flattening on impact and the force pushing a lead core outwards, controlled by a copper jacket. Hollow point ammunition expands more rapidly. Expanding bullets were outlawed by the Hague Convention of 1899, and the full metal jacket bullet was introduced as a humanitarian gesture to lessen the severity of wounds compounded by fragmentation and expansion. When the 5.56 mm round became standard the increased velocity was discovered to cause a tumbling effect on the projectile on impact, causing bizzare bullet paths. When any weapon causes an enemy to be wounded so it takes 2 other men to carry him it's a bonus. We had little plastic landmines that would fire a .22 short through your foot if you stepped on it, very inexpensive and easy to use and designed specifically to cause a minor wound, but almost impossible to detect, and they were meant to be deployed in great numbers. Now illegal since the landmine treaty (which is still unsigned by many nations).

Yes, semantics. Don't be silly.

What does California have? It has people owning guns because it's their "constitutional right" to do so. It has little to do with how restrictive it is compared to Canada or anywhere else, it has to do with the attitude that guns are somehow a part of the culture, and are OK to have and to use in daily life. As I have said, the main challenge is for America (and particularly conservative American politicians) to separate gun ownership from constitutional freedoms, and stop hiding behind a loosely written 250-year-old phrase passed in haste by legislators with no notion of 21st century weaponry.

This.

Military weapons are designed to kill, bit of a myth about the "designed to wound" to take people off the battlefield, the Hague Accords and the later Geneva Protocol were intended to stop that sort of thing. The reason being for example that certain chemical weapons are not designed to kill but instead to incapacitate in a variety of nasty ways.

I'm not being silly, it's not semantics. A wide variety of firearms are not designed to kill. I don't dispute they can kill and irresponsible use of them would generally lead to being killed with them but they aren't designed to kill. A wide variety of shotguns for example are designed purely for shooting clays out of the sky. The .22 pistols and rifles used in ISSF events and at the Olympics are clearly not designed to kill.

It's factually wrong to say they are. Although I have to say I do get annoyed with people who take this too far, many sports have grown out of martial arts, such as archery, javelin, shot put, etc. At the end of the day it was a skill that evolved out of killing people. Like when I pick up a gun can call it a weapon, often someone will say, no it's not a weapon, it's purely a tool, blah, blah. Yes it's a tool that is a weapon. Forgetting that is likely to put the thought in your mind it can't cause significant harm if you get shot with one. Anymore than I would want to get skewered with a javelin!

California doesn't have a constitutional right in its state constitution to keep and bear arms, it's one of the only States that doesn't. Hence it's quite hard to do anything about the many gun laws directly there as you have to take it to Federal court. Usually their gun laws get struck down on other grounds, such as violation of due process.

I don't think that's got anything to do with it, there are plenty of places in America with pretty loose gun laws and a healthy respect for the Second Amendment that have very little crime, armed or otherwise. California would have to qualify I think as the State with the least interest in respecting the Second Amendment.

There's just a culture of being trigger happy, you only have to watch American TV for a few hours to see it.

By the way, the Second Amendment was apparently based in part on Article 7 of the Bill of Rights 1689, it's far from being a uniquely American thing.

As for the 21st century, you could make the same argument about the internet in regards to the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment.

1) I'm not your mate, and neither do you think so either. So, please don't refer to me as such. It's like being French kissed by an old wench.
2) The fact that you edited the post and yet it still came out appearing incomprehensibly nonsensical means that I haven't got a 3).

Yeah I'm prejudiced against exposing children to dangerous firearms. Hands up! Last I checked, though, children firing guns was not a sport in the modern Olympics.

Yeah okay, but I bet the ownership of guns by people in the country compared with people in the city is like 20:1. Rural community = people in the country.

I have never seen a cow painted COW but I would live to see one. I once saw a garbage hut painted "No bears" in Muskoka which this guy said was there for literate bears. The amount of Americans who believed him, made me chuckle ...!