Gyroscopic Investing

On an unrelated topic, I love your avatar, Stone.  Is that your dog dressed up as Yoda?  Awesome costume.

stone wrote: Are you claiming that Japanese Americans in WWII could have used guns to prevent their internment?

No, I'm saying the "Well that could never happen here" defense doesn't hold water when you start looking into history.

"I would say that Egypt up to this year was an example of people not making a stand and so getting trampled on. They then made a non-violent stand and won."

Did they really win??

Reub wrote: "I would say that Egypt up to this year was an example of people not making a stand and so getting trampled on. They then made a non-violent stand and won."

Did they really win??

Too soon to tell.  Mostly likely, they just traded one despot for another. 
Anything less than a democracy would be a loss in my book.

You mean that an Islamic state controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood is possibly not a "win"??

Reub wrote: "I would say that Egypt up to this year was an example of people not making a stand and so getting trampled on. They then made a non-violent stand and won."

Did they really win??

I agree, you can never say that freedom has been won for the future because keeping freedom requires perpetual vigilance and engagement. I suspect that had the Egyptian people been entirely passive, then things would have got worse for them.
It is often harder to make your own government work right than to overthrow an oppressor. Straight after Indian independence, the continent descended into sectarian massacres with the Partition- that's such a tragic irony.

I find Singapore an astonishing example though of how a population seems to do very well with very restricted freedom. I suppose people being decent to each other is the most important thing.

Storm wrote: Is that your dog dressed up as Yoda? 

I'm afraid its just a picture pilfered off the web. There are plenty more:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dog+st ... 92&bih=562

Reub wrote: You mean that an Islamic state controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood is possibly not a "win"??

I suppose historically Islamic states have not all been all bad. Didn't some Islamic states allow religious minorities ( Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians) to florish within them and were prosperous and peaceful? When the first UK university (Oxford)was being set up, a deligation was sent to the Islamic world (Toledo) to bring books and find out how scholarship and science were done. The origin of the European Renassiance was Islam I guess. I'm not saying early Islam was all good. They had slavery afterall.
Obviously there are awful islamic states but some of the nastiest regimes in the Arab world were relatively secular- eg Saddam's Iraq.

Storm wrote: To use [Freedom_Found's] seat belt analogy, I'm perfectly fine driving with my standard shoulder and lap belt with supplemental air bags (my .40 handgun).  Some politician came along and outlawed those safety harnesses that Formula 1 drivers wear.  Does that mean I can't protect myself?  I'm perfectly fine with wearing the seat belt I'm wearing.  Why do I need an F1 safety harness?  I don't plan on hitting a barrier doing 200 mph.

How about paraphrasing that last part in PP terms: "I'm perfectly fine with the stock-and-bond portfolio I currently have. Why do I need 25% gold in my portfolio? I'm not planning on Armageddon happening anytime soon."

Some people simply want the freedom to protect themselves against crazy-sounding, almost unimaginable things. If doing so doesn't infringe on anyone else's person or property, why should they be prevented from doing so?

Having a discussion purely about probabilities of various undesirable events is one thing; having a discussion about how those probabilities should affect people's freedom is quite another.

Tortoise wrote: Some people simply want the freedom to protect themselves against crazy-sounding, almost unimaginable things. If doing so doesn't infringe on anyone else's person or property, why should they be prevented from doing so?

Some would argue that one person's freedom to protect against crazy-sounding unimaginable events, if they involve the storage of firearms, ammo, and associated items, infringes upon others' rights to "feel safe" by believing their neighbor doesn't have "crazy militia stuff."

Tortoise wrote: Some people simply want the freedom to protect themselves against crazy-sounding, almost unimaginable things. If doing so doesn't infringe on anyone else's person or property, why should they be prevented from doing so?

I guess you also have some boundary to this? Would you be happy for a US institution (such as a religion, corporation or political party) to have a private army with military capability to match the US army?

If not and you are troubled simply by that capability for force, then you're part of a continuem of weapon prohibitionists.

Stone makes a good point... as libertarian as I am, I don't want my next door neighbor having a nuclear weapon, so there must be some level between a single shot .22 derringer and an ICBM that should be considered "reasonable." I think that point would be at which a family would be able to defend themselves against individual threats in a martial law situation. This situation has occurred for various short periods during the US's history. Most recently, Katrina and the LA riots come to mind. 

To me, this includes ANY small arms up to .50 caliber. Machine guns included, as many do not know they are already completely legal in something like 26 states. When you start talking large explosives and biological agents, I think that's where the line should be drawn. These are more designed for mass casualties rather than individual threats. But, as we've seen from Timothy McVeigh and the Anthrax events after 9/11, criminals will still get and use these things regardless.

I'm glad I found this forum, people on here seem bright and present their arguments well. Look forward to getting to know all of you.

Freedom_Found wrote: Machine guns included, as many do not know they are already completely legal in something like 26 states.

Machine guns are legal in the US, but there is a limited number of legally registered machine guns that are transferrable between individuals, so that drives the cost up. It's about $10k for a legal entry level full auto machine gun due to supply and demand. The gun could be made for a few hundred dollars except for the artificial supply reduction due to the NFA legislation.

(SARCASM MODE ON)

If someone can afford $10k on a machine gun, they must be rich. And rich people don't commit crimes because they are already rich. Thus, there hasn't been a single reported criminal act that's ever happened with a legally registered machine gun.

If we opened up machine gun registration again, and people could buy one for $500, then poor people would get their hands on them, and poor people do commit crimes, because they are poor, and there would be blood in the streets.

Of course a poor person could buy a $500 gun today, and use a hand-file to remove a small amount of metal from a few parts of the gun, and illegally convert it into a machine gun. Fortunately, poor people are stupid. If they were smart, they wouldn't be poor. So poor people are too stupid to know they could buy a $500 gun, and convert it into a machine gun in a few minutes. If they knew that, then there would be blood in the streets already.

People are inherently evil and we need more government controls to restrict people from owning dangerous things like machine guns. At least we need restrictions against poor and stupid people.

And technically the restrictions and laws only work on those who won't commit crimes anyway. Because if someone is going to murder a bunch of people with a machine gun, they probably won't have a problem breaking the law to:

a) steal one
b) illegally modify one

Because after all, they are criminals and laws don't apply to them.

We should probably also require a background check on half the chemicals in home depot, because if you guys knew what I knew, you wouldn't feel safe that anyone can walk in and buy pre-cursors to things I will not speak of, because only the "T-word"s talk about stuff like that, and if you're a "T-word" you don't have constitutional rights anymore. I'm not a T-word so I do have free speech but if I use it a certain way, it would make me into a T-word which strips of me my right to free speech, and due process, and a trial by jury, etc. Therefore I shall not name what could be made from various household chemicals.

(SARCASM OFF/ RANT MODE ON)

The truth is that violence is a cultural phenomenon. It's ridiculous to think gun laws will do one thing or another to violence or murder. Prison inmates die on a regular basis from sharpened down toothbrushes stabbed into their kidney, yet on the outside free world, where all sorts of weapons imaginable are freely available, there substantially less violence per capita outside of prisons. Why?

Because violent people are in prison and it breeds a culture of violence. Take away their weapons and they are still violent.

Violence is a culture problem, not an inanimate object problem. You can't legislate culture. You can impact it, slowly over time, through things like No Child Left Behind feel-good nonsense where we have grown a culture of entitlement over the last few decades where every kid gets a trophy and is told they can all go to Harvard and become neurosurgeons when the truth is that it's bullshit. Little Johnny whose mommy smoked crack when he was in her womb, and now has neurological problems with shaky hands and an IQ of 80 will never be a surgeon.

However, taking away guns, will not change the culture in any direction, except perhaps to that of subservience and blind compliance to government. "They have guns. We aren't allowed to. We better listen to them regardless of what they say. They must know better. They're allowed to have guns after all."

I'll leave you with an interesting quote I found online:

"Here's an idea. Why don't we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, imprison, harass, steal from, and kill people so that we can be protected from people who would kidnap, imprison, harass, steal from, and kill us?"

stone wrote:

Tortoise wrote: Some people simply want the freedom to protect themselves against crazy-sounding, almost unimaginable things. If doing so doesn't infringe on anyone else's person or property, why should they be prevented from doing so?

I guess you also have some boundary to this? Would you be happy for a US institution (such as a religion, corporation or political party) to have a private army with military capability to match the US army?

If not and you are troubled simply by that capability for force, then you're part of a continuem of weapon prohibitionists.

If a private institution were to succeed in "matching the U.S. Army" in military capability through voluntary means, perhaps the U.S. Army--which operates on tax funds obtained from U.S. citizens non-voluntarily--should start taking lessons from that private institution

I'm being a bit facetious, but on a more serious note, I do see your point that there need to be practical limits on what sorts of weapons people should be allowed to possess for self-defense. Keep in mind, though, that there is a huge, huge difference between allowing people to possess military-grade weapons on the one hand (nuclear and biological weapons, high explosives, militia-scale arsenals, etc.) and allowing them simply to carry a concealed handgun in public on the other hand. Attempting to lump both of those into the same categorical bin would be pushing the limits of credulity.

Freedom_Found wrote: When you start talking large explosives and biological agents, I think that's where the line should be drawn. These are more designed for mass casualties rather than individual threats.

Some gun-control advocates say the same thing about so-called "assault rifles" like M16s and AK-47s. Many people claim those types of firearms are specifically designed for mass casualties rather than individual threats; many other people claim just as vehemently that in a SHTF scenario, one might want or need just such a weapon to protect one's family from a roaming gang that may be armed to the teeth.

My point is that it's no simple matter to get everyone to agree on where the line should be drawn between what is designed for "individual threats" vs. "mass casualties."

When having a discussion about guns and gun control, one thing that I frequently notice about the people on the anti-gun side of the discussion is that they often really don't know very much about guns at all.

I find that this vagueness of understanding on one side of the discussion often makes it hard to get anywhere.

When I begin to detect that a person talking about guns has never shot one or otherwise knows very little about them I always wish such a person would take the time to learn about them, learn about shooting, learn about gun safety, and then see if their views have changed.

It's much easier to make coherent and nuanced arguments in favor of gun control if you have firsthand experience with what you are talking about.

I'm not directing these comments to anyone in this discussion.  I have just had that "aha" moment in many gun control discussions where I realize that the person I am talking to is speaking purely in terms of ideas, having never held or fired a gun themselves.

One of the interesting things about ammo that is available in the U.S. (as opposed to guns that are available) is that many of the hunting and self-defense rounds are designed to inflict maximum damage upon impact, as opposed to rounds designed for military use, which are presumably designed to do the minimal amount of tissue damage when they do strike someone.  It's sort of bizarre, but the average round being fired by a hunter from an AR-15-type rifle in the U.S. is FAR more lethal than the rounds being fired by soldiers in combat.

Thus, one of the benefits of an anti-gun advocate knowing more about guns might be that they would be able to propose more intelligent gun control measures, perhaps such as only selling soft-tipped hunting rounds that expand upon impact (and thus do much more tissue damage) to people with hunting licenses.  Such a proposal might already be out there, but I've never heard anything like that.  What I seem to hear a lot about are "assault weapons", which is mostly a cosmetic description of a firearm, "cop killer" rounds, which are just a subset of a much larger class of ammunition that could properly be called "human killer" rounds, and "high capacity magazines", which can never be completely eliminated since the firearm being fed by the high capacity magazine has normally been designed to receive such a magazine, which makes it pretty easy to get around any magazine size restrictions.

As the discussion above shows, most everyone is in favor of SOME kind of gun control (no one wants their neighbor to have a nuke), it's just a question of where the line will be drawn.  It seems to me that it would be easier to draw that line intelligently if all of the decision-makers knew more about the topic they were seeking to restrict.

MediumTex wrote: It's sort of bizarre, but the average round being fired by a hunter from an AR-15-type rifle in the U.S. is FAR more lethal than the rounds being fired by soldiers in combat.

Why is that?  I mean, why would the military want less lethal rounds than the (civilian) hunters?

smurff wrote:

MediumTex wrote: It's sort of bizarre, but the average round being fired by a hunter from an AR-15-type rifle in the U.S. is FAR more lethal than the rounds being fired by soldiers in combat.

Why is that?  I mean, why would the military want less lethal rounds than the (civilian) hunters?

I believe that the technical reason for the less lethal ammunition has to do with international treaties.

I believe the real reason is that the basic approach to designing military rounds is to create a round that will wound rather than kill, on the theory that wounded soldiers are more demoralizing to an opposing army than dead ones, along with being much harder to evacuate from the battlefield.

This same design theory apparently does not carry over into weapons such as helicopter mounted guns and guided missiles, which seem designed not just to kill but to separate a single human body into as many pieces as possible.

Interesting.  I learn something new every day on this list.

MediumTex wrote: When having a discussion about guns and gun control, one thing that I frequently notice about the people on the anti-gun side of the discussion is that they often really don't know very much about guns at all.

It's not just the people taking part in the "discussion," it's the people writing and passing the legislation...

http://youtu.be/UmZZVTEz4RQ

MediumTex wrote:
When I begin to detect that a person talking about guns has never shot one or otherwise knows very little about them I always wish such a person would take the time to learn about them, learn about shooting, learn about gun safety, and then see if their views have changed.

It's much easier to make coherent and nuanced arguments in favor of gun control if you have firsthand experience with what you are talking about.

By that corrolary does one need first hand experience in raping, arsoning, or stabbing to discuss laws against them?  ;D

I completely agree with you. Most anti-gunners just believe what they see on TV. In fact, most people who were raised around guns, in the southern US for example, do not grow up with an irrational fear of them and desire to ban them.

As far as the military rounds, you're right on two things but they are not connected.

The Hague Accords and Geneva Convention are international military treaties that dictate how war should be fought. One part bans the use of hollow-point ammo. It was considered too "inhumane" to shoot people with that, because it causes lots of soft-tissue damage, so they require the use of FMJs, or Full Metal Jacket ammo.

It's also true that in combat, it's better to wound someone than kill them. The principle is that a killed soldier takes out 1 enemy. An injured soldier takes out 3+ because now 2 guys have to be "tied up" carrying their injured team member away.

However, there's no connection between using ammo that is more likely to wound. In fact, the US military has authorized the use of a special "open-tip" bullet that is effectively a hollow-point but with a bullshit name, to bypass the Hague Accords because the ammo is much more effective on soft tissue than FMJ.

Another consideration is that most soldiers wear body armor. The current FMJ ammo used by NATO troops has a tungsten core designed to penetrate armor plates. Hollow-points work great against soft tissue, but if they don't penetrate armor, they won't get to the soft tissue. From that perspective, if the "bad guy" has hard armor plates, you may want to use FMJs.

An interesting note is that the ATF has ruled SS109, the 62 grain 5.56 FMJ armor piercing round with tungsten core, to be legal for US civilians to own as an exemption, even though almost all armor-piercing ammo is banned for civilian use. I'm not sure why, but my guess is that Lake City and a bunch of domestic ammo companies lobbied to get an exemption so they could sell ammo to civilians in the event that the military didn't need as much. Otherwise these US companies would have been hesitant to ramp up production with the military as their sole buyer. Just a guess, and if anyone knows for sure why this exemption exists, please let me know.

As far as MediumTex's point about anti-gunners learning about guns to make better legislation, I whole-heartedly agree. I've long said that all the bullshit restrictions on "assault weapons" are meaningless. I won't give fuel to the anti-gunners, but I could write some amazingly effective restrictions if I wanted to.

Damn good thing Congress doesn't know how guns... or the Internet works when drafting legislation.

It could be argued that our liberty depends on having a government that has control of massively better weapons than we do. There is also a critical difference between "having a government" and being "under a government". Keeping the government as something that you "have" rather than being something you're under is what takes vigilance.

The UK has a sorry history of being either side of slave trades at various times. Before the Romans invaded, the British had advanced steel weapons but no national government. Each small tribe lived alongside each other. The Roman demand for slaves was met by British people capturing each other and selling to the Romans.
Later Viking slave traders based in  England captured slaves in Eastern Europe (where government was weak) and sold them in central Asia (where they had a powerful government). In the 1300s England had feeble government. English and Dutch pirates captured thousands of English, Dutch and Irish people to sell to North Africa (where they had powerful government). In the 1700s British people captured slaves in West Africa to sell to the Americas. They choose West Africa as a source for the slaves because there there was no national government that could mount an army to keep the slave traders away. Instead each tribe turned on their neighbours, colaborating with the slave traders.

Each person having weapons does not protect liberty if people turn on each other. To me history shows that it is national unity that protects liberty, not personal weapons.

Tortoise wrote: If a private institution were to succeed in "matching the U.S. Army" in military capability through voluntary means, perhaps the U.S. Army--which operates on tax funds obtained from U.S. citizens non-voluntarily--should start taking lessons from that private institution

I'm being a bit facetious, but on a more serious note, I do see your point that there need to be practical limits on what sorts of weapons people should be allowed to possess for self-defense.

Ah yes, let's outsource the use of force to a faceless multi-national corporation.  What could possibly go wrong? 

Most of the "gun-weary" of us have not been arguing much for specific gun laws... but saying that there are things MUCH more important to keeping one's family safe in the real world, and that should be your MAIN consideration when choosing where to live.  California's crime may be bad in some areas, but so are several very conservative states, and there are areas of Cali with very low crime.

Looking at gun laws as the main family-protection consideration on which state to live in is like buying a car on credit to protect against hyperinflation.  It MAY work... kinda, but is much more likely to be a very misfocused effort, and result in very little real gain compared to having focused your considerations elsewhere.

My best bet is to move into a safe part of a safe city or greater neighborhood... if I let gun laws in and of themselves drastically affect my attitude on where to live, it's likely an emotional, not rational, reaction to possible threats to my family.  I'm sure plenty of gun laws are poorly written by people who don't know what they're doing... but until that significantly affects my own or my family's safety above other factors, I'm going to put my emotions aside for the time being and look at crime maps and other factors.

Further, the idea that we should be able to defend ourselves from our own gov't, and therefore should not be limited to smallish weapons, implies that we should be able to do battle with our gov't, and that would take heavy explosives, if not nuclear armament.

I think we just have to acknowledge that if our gov't REALLY wants to launch a deadly assault against us, we won't stand much of a chance.  Any attempt to allow Americans to defend themselves against such an attack will simply make EXTREMELY dangerous weaponry relatively easy to get for evil-doers.  Our best weapon against a militant government is a free media and wide-spread access.... heck, phone cameras and youtube are probably a huge deterrent to an overzealous government in ways guns or grenades could never accomplish.

I agree with TB that culture has WAY more to do with crime than inanimate objects, but inanimate objects can add a multiplier affect to "crazy a$$hole" in a lot of ways.

Further, TB admitted himself that the high price of existing machine guns makes it MUCH more unlikely that poor criminals get their hands on them.  Without that "artificial supply limit," that price would fall incredibly low, and those people will get guns much more easily.

But in the end I'm not arguing for restrictive gun laws... simply saying that looking at them as the main consideration in how to keep your family safe is completely, utterly misguided.

TripleB wrote:

MediumTex wrote:
When I begin to detect that a person talking about guns has never shot one or otherwise knows very little about them I always wish such a person would take the time to learn about them, learn about shooting, learn about gun safety, and then see if their views have changed.

It's much easier to make coherent and nuanced arguments in favor of gun control if you have firsthand experience with what you are talking about.

By that corrolary does one need first hand experience in raping, arsoning, or stabbing to discuss laws against them?  ;D

I completely agree with you. Most anti-gunners just believe what they see on TV. In fact, most people who were raised around guns, in the southern US for example, do not grow up with an irrational fear of them and desire to ban them.

As far as the military rounds, you're right on two things but they are not connected.

The Hague Accords and Geneva Convention are international military treaties that dictate how war should be fought. One part bans the use of hollow-point ammo. It was considered too "inhumane" to shoot people with that, because it causes lots of soft-tissue damage, so they require the use of FMJs, or Full Metal Jacket ammo.

It's also true that in combat, it's better to wound someone than kill them. The principle is that a killed soldier takes out 1 enemy. An injured soldier takes out 3+ because now 2 guys have to be "tied up" carrying their injured team member away.

However, there's no connection between using ammo that is more likely to wound. In fact, the US military has authorized the use of a special "open-tip" bullet that is effectively a hollow-point but with a bullshit name, to bypass the Hague Accords because the ammo is much more effective on soft tissue than FMJ.

Another consideration is that most soldiers wear body armor. The current FMJ ammo used by NATO troops has a tungsten core designed to penetrate armor plates. Hollow-points work great against soft tissue, but if they don't penetrate armor, they won't get to the soft tissue. From that perspective, if the "bad guy" has hard armor plates, you may want to use FMJs.

An interesting note is that the ATF has ruled SS109, the 62 grain 5.56 FMJ armor piercing round with tungsten core, to be legal for US civilians to own as an exemption, even though almost all armor-piercing ammo is banned for civilian use. I'm not sure why, but my guess is that Lake City and a bunch of domestic ammo companies lobbied to get an exemption so they could sell ammo to civilians in the event that the military didn't need as much. Otherwise these US companies would have been hesitant to ramp up production with the military as their sole buyer. Just a guess, and if anyone knows for sure why this exemption exists, please let me know.

As far as MediumTex's point about anti-gunners learning about guns to make better legislation, I whole-heartedly agree. I've long said that all the bullshit restrictions on "assault weapons" are meaningless. I won't give fuel to the anti-gunners, but I could write some amazingly effective restrictions if I wanted to.

Damn good thing Congress doesn't know how guns... or the Internet works when drafting legislation.

You actually illustrate a very profound problem in the US.  Our gun control laws have no teeth because the gun and ammo manufacturers have such powerful lobbies that there are all kinds of loopholes.  Like, for example, if I have a mental illness or a criminal record, I might not be able to purchase a gun at a "gun store", because of the background check, but I can go to any gun show and walk away with a gun on the spot because they have exemptions.

It helps to know the history behind California gun laws.  The LAPD was being outgunned by crack dealing gangs that had fully automatic weapons, which they were fighting at the time with standard police issue .38s.  Sure, criminals will still be able to find some guns, and gun control laws don't have much teeth because of all the loopholes, but the point is the laws kept some guns off the street and out of the hands of criminals.

In the end, the blame needs to go to the gun manufacturers.  They make sure there are enough loopholes to keep guns on the streets because they know that if enough criminals have military weapons, the cops will need to buy them too.  It's an arms race, and the gun manufacturers can sell weapons to both sides.  They love selling guns to both countries in an armed conflict - it's no different here.

So, why don't we just have effective gun control laws, and effective enforcement of gun laws?  By effective gun control laws I mean don't outlaw someone's hunting rifle - that's idiotic.  Don't outlaw handguns.  Outlaw the weapons that have no other use than military.  And if you're going to outlaw them, don't allow stupid loopholes.

Want to hear one stupid loophole?  In the early 90s the TEC-9 was a very popular weapon used by gangs because it was small and could hold mags with 72 or more rounds in them.

The TEC-9 and, eventually, TEC-DC9 variants were listed among the 19 firearms banned by name in the USA by the now expired 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). This ban caused the cessation of their manufacture, and forced Intratec to introduce a newer model called the AB-10, a TEC-9 Mini without a threaded muzzle and limited to a 10 round magazine instead of a 20 or 32 round magazine. However, it accepted the high capacity magazines of the pre-ban models.

How stupid is that?  They ban the manufacture of a weapon because it holds too many rounds, then the manufacturer just makes a new one that takes the same magazines from the old weapons.  Same problem - now you just have to find a different magazine but the gun is pretty much identical.  Stupid, idiotic lawmakers in the pockets of the NRA and gun lobbyists.

How about a law with some teeth in it?  How about a $10,000 fine to any corporation whose weapon is found to have been used to commit a crime?  Regardless of how the criminal got a hold of it.  I think you would see black market weapons dry up overnight.

The problem with banning "this" or "that" specific type of gun is that it never stops at that. Research the statements from those in favor of banning guns and you'll see the majority of them have no problem stating their ultimate goal of removing ALL weapons from the population. Historically, gun laws tend to be like tax rates. They always start small, on a gun "you shouldn't be able to need" and slowly grow from there.

Surely you've heard the statements: "No one should need an AK-47/AR-15/High powered "assault rifle," to hunt with. I especially like how they always add "high powered" when they are usually talking about an AR15 which generally fires a .223 bullet (thats basically .22 caliber) which was originally designed for varmint hunting.

The problem is, they day they tell me I "shouldn't need" a certain gun, is exactly the day I'm probably going to need it most. It's not a "bill of needs," but a "bill of rights." Why do I need to justify my exercise of a fundamental civil right?

I shouldn't "need" a Ferrari or Porsche to get to work, in fact why should anyone "need" a car which goes faster than the posted speed limit?

People like Hillary Clinton which have taken on gun banning as a major issue use "safety of the children" as their main reasoning behind it. However, scores more children die from drowning accidents every year than from guns, and never once has Hilary launched some kind of "personal flotation device" campaign to help save children from drowning. In fact, they're so obtuse in ignoring the plain fact that criminals simply don't follow the law, that their only strategy to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is to keep them out of the hands of everyone.