The fact still remains that there is no need for the right to bear arms in modern America. You cannot deny that fewer firearms would help towards lower rates of violent crime. I've never understood the American fixation with firearms, the constitution has been abused and twisted to disguise the fact that they're entirely pointless for someone leading an urban or suburban lifestyle - and for those who live rurally and require them, the gun control laws of countries such as the UK would be perfectly adequate.

While correlation does not mean causation, the numbers imply that the exact opposite is true. Also, check the crime rate in London. It's way higher than most American (or at least Southern) cities. Sure it's mostly knife crime not gun crime, but muggings are still muggings.

you can only take guns away from law abiding citizens 38. the whole point of being a criminal is to get things illegally, so all the gangsters, drug dealers, the thieves have them. Who doesn't have them is the mother and father with a family. Criminals could and would have their way knowing there is no repercussions to what they are doing. If they know that no one can cap them in the ass whats stopping them?

America faces a problem with gun crime. The UK faces a problem with knife crime. Therefore gun control and knife control are advisable, for each country, respectively.

There's plenty reason. Legal gun ownership lowers crime rates. Criminals almost all use illegal guns to commit crime. It's easy to get rid of firearms in the UK, they are an island after all. It's harder to smuggle in guns. But the US shares a border with Mexico, which has a very powerful criminal element, plus the countries south of that who's gun laws vary enough for weapons of different types to be smuggled out. You can't get rid of guns in America, and even if you did it would only succeed in taking away guns from people who want nothing more than to use them legally. No matter what, criminals will get guns. Even in the UK criminals have guns. Right after they passed a much stricter gun control law, as a matter of fact, home invasion robberies sky-rocketed because fewer people had guns ready for use in defense. That's why citizens need firearms. Although I do find it hard to believe that the OP was jacked for a gun right outside a gun store, but maybe...

This actually did happen, it was on the news awhile back. LOL, funny then, still funny now. Thats what the OP gets for shopping down near OBT and John Young Parkway. :D

you really think they keep LOADED guns in a gun shop? It would take at least 2 minutes for them to get one, unlock it, load it, and get out there. By that time, the perp is probably gone. And he didn't say out front. He said "as I was leaving". He could have been walking through a dark alley to his car.

Most of the employees at every gun shop I've been to carry on them. Remember that scene in "The Terminator"? That's why.

Every employee of every gun shop I've ever been to has been visibly packing.

Yes, because if the only people who owned guns were criminals, the world would be much safer, right? Keep your liberal idealism to yourself, there's no place for it in the real world.

Research proves that the simple presence of a gun in a situation increases levels of aggressiveness in people. To more directly address your point, incidences of accidental gun shootings far out number incidences of guns actually being useful against criminals. Its just a shame there are so many people like you in America that keep us so backward, with one of the highest crime rates in the developed world.

And it is a shame that uneducated liberals like yourself keep misconstruing the facts to your own twisted ends. Correlation =/= causation. To address your point, the reason the few accidents outnumber the lawful use is because gun ownership is too low in the population, and because gun ownership generally has a deterrence effect as opposed to a direct effect. Legal gun ownership has been proven to show no negative impact on crime, and in most circumstances, has the opposite effect. Research shows that, contrary to what you believe, as the number of lawful gun owners in an area increases, the crime level decreases. The reason crime is so bad is because the number of illegal gun carriers vastly outnumbers the number of legal weapon owners. Gun control does not work in free society, period. Unless the USA becomes a totalitarian government where not even criminals can get guns, gun control puts innocent people at risk. Liberal gun control has been shown to have 0 positive effect on gun crimes, and leads to an increase in overall crime. Also, if you want to base your argument on an occasional accident, why don't you try to get cars outlawed too? There have been suicides caused by the internet, do you propose we ban that? People die from accidental electrocution, we should probably regulate that into oblivion too while we're ahead of ourselves. Because that is how stupid your argument (or lack thereof) sounds.