"We don't need no stupid (or ask for or buy a) permit or license from no politician to have, carry, own or shoot a gun of any kind". I do not and never will.

Spoken like a true outlaw. (It's a refreshing change from that "law abiding citizen" tear jerk.)

Ah, but you need someone to make your guns for you, don't you?

So sad - another anarchist fantasy crashes into reality.

You know the extent of his mechanical skills,Fantastico? Like many Drone-Boys, you're used to having things "done" for you and you project that lumpy helplessness,unthinkingly,onto all others. Your "reality" is all yours,by yourself.

Here's the thing - gang-bangers don't make their 9mm's in shop class. They don't pick them off the pistol tree. Corporations make them, by the thousands every day, in modern factories, and market them, for fat profits. (Nothing wrong with that - if the product wasn't designed to wound and kill. Because that is the specific purpose of handguns, society needs effective legal means of keeping them out of the hands of criminals, drunks, madmen, and kids.)

Yeah, criminals used to make single-shot "zip" guns - and blow their fingers off more often than not. Now, thanks to an ever-expanding supply of handguns, and an ineffective patchwork system of controls, enough leak from dealers and "law abiding gun owners" that criminals don't need to take that risk. I don't call that progress.

Feel free to amuse me with more clumsy insults, though.

BlueHue:

Corporations make them, by the thousands every day, in modern factories, and market them, for fat profits. (Nothing wrong with that - if the product wasn't designed to wound and kill. Because that is the specific purpose of handguns, society needs effective legal means of keeping them out of the hands of criminals, drunks, madmen, and kids.)

Yeah, criminals used to make single-shot "zip" guns - and blow their fingers off more often than not. Now, thanks to an ever-expanding supply of handguns, and an ineffective patchwork system of controls, enough leak from dealers and "law abiding gun owners" that criminals don't need to take that risk. I don't call that progress.

Feel free to amuse me with more clumsy insults, though.

What you're ignoring is that guns shipped overseas, legally, are illegally smuggled back into the country. This is not an issue of gun manufacturers making guns. It is an issue of criminal organizations illegally distributing them. The difference is monumental.

There's no evidence to suggest that gun maufacturers let entire stockpiles of weapons just slip into the general population unchecked.

OK, D-B.

You: "What you're ignoring is that guns shipped overseas, legally, are illegally smuggled back into the country."

Where on earth did you get that bit of nonsense? According to the BATF, the most common sources of guns for the black market are obtained via staw purchasing, unlicenced dealers, and corrupt FFLs. Another 26 percent come from guns stolen from FFLs, residences, and common carriers. The only thing in the stats that could even be close to your assertion is the 6.2 percent of investigations involving "Street criminals buying and selling firearms from unknown sources" - and that's unlikely to be just guns smuggled in from overseas.

You can look it up yourself at <link> - if you like evidence, that is; if you just like pulling things out of your, uh, hat....

You: "This is not an issue of gun manufacturers making guns. It is an issue of criminal organizations illegally distributing them. The difference is monumental."

The difference is just obfiscation on your part. In the U.S., guns in the black market are guns manufactured for the legal market. Because we don't licence owners, register the guns, and require notice of resale, theft, or loss, far too many of them wind up in the hands of criminals (and kids, and drunks, and madmen...). We need to do better than this.

Let me give you an example: When Virginia passed it's one-gun-a-month law, Virginia lost it's place as the primary source of black-market guns for the eastern seaboard. And yet the knee-jerk portion of the gun enthusiast crowd opposed that law, and oppose other states adapting it. Now, the proto-typical "law abiding gun owner" doesn't buy more than one gun in a year, much less a month - so whose interests are being served by opposition to such a law?