Reply #104: Because ostensibly reasonable measures have been abused in the past, and may be again

[Euromutt]

There are quite a few measures that I support in the abstract (such as a licensing requirement, dependent on being able to demonstrate competency in firearm handling and safety) that I oppose in practice because there have been instances where such measures were perverted into de facto prohibition by the expedient of not holding the required class, or holding it at opportune times, or by only accepting applications between 0905 and 0906 on alternating Wednesdays (may be subject to change without notice), etc. etc.

The reason American gun owners aren't prepared to give an inch is because, whenever in the past they've given an inch, prohibitionists have tried to stretch that inch into a mile. When someone proves themselves incapable of negotiating in good faith, sooner or later the only thing you can do is refuse to negotiate.

And as other posters have already pointed out, "compromise" requires that both sides make concessions. The only "concession" the gun control lobby seems to be willing to make is "we won't go all the way and completely ban private ownership... yet."

And why should we compare gun crime rates, as opposed to violent crime rates in general? The measure of public safety is not dependent on the methods used to jeopardize it. A robbery at knife-point is no less severe an offense than a robbery at gunpoint, nor is being fatally shot worse than being beaten, stabbed, hacked or bludgeoned to death. In fact, during the Rwandan genocide, government troops accepted bribes from victims to shoot them, rather than let them be hacked to pieces by the machete-wielders. Now, to compare, Russian gun laws are fairly stringent; you need a permit to own a smooth-bore long gun or a tear-gas pistol, and only after owning either for several years can you apply for a permit for a rifled-bore long gun, and as a private citizen, you cannot legally purchase a handgun. And yet, the Russian homicide rate is around three times the American one. Sure, a far smaller percentage of it gets done with firearms, but that doesn't stop them from beating and knifing each other to death. And I'm fairly certain Russia is an "industrialized nation." Hell, the Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) have gun control laws comparable to Russia's (a holdover from the Soviet era), and their homicide rates are higher than the United States', even though they've been EU member states for six years.