I am so depressed. I've been watching the news all morning about the deadliest shooting rampage in US history.

Then my co-worker pointed out that 600,000 civilians have died in Iraq and 500 die every day.

I was like "Oh thanks I feel alot better now."

Then I started thinking about Darfur.

Maybe I should call my doctor and go on anti-depressants.

Hey Laurend, Your blatherings are most welcome by myself and others. It is great having a strong and intelligent woman on the boards who is not afraid to speak her mind. I'm lovin it!:clap2: :biggrin1:

Susannah

I realize this is probably politically incorrect, and may even provoke angry responses, but I can't help but notice that there is virtually no coverage in the news of the 170 civilians killed today in Baghdad bombings.

I was thinking the same thing! What happened at VT was horrible, but in the scope of things it's a drop in the bucket. This type of thing happens on a daily basis in Iraq...and Darfur, only they do it with machetes. I can't even imagine being in the middle of that kind of violence.

We didn't even blink when it was being done in Bosnia and Rwanda...

I wonder if we even deserve this beautiful planet we've been given...

A further note on gun control: a letter to the editor published yesterday in The Globe and Mail (one of the Canada's two national newspapers) mentioned that the author had googled gun deaths by country and had discovered - no surprise - that stricter gun laws result in fewer deaths. In Japan, where gun ownership is illegal, the gun death rate in 1994 was 0.05 per 100,000 people. Canada's rate was 4.31 and the U.S. clocked in at 14.24.

The writer, a Bruce MacDonald of Vancouver, passes along a few other interesting statistics which he had culled. About 5,000 American children under the age of 15 die annually due to gun-related activities; fatalities of this type are virtually unheard of in Japan. He also mentions that in those Canadian provinces where there are fewer gun-owning households, there are fewer gun-related fatalities.

Is wide-scale ownership of guns by private citizens really necessary in the 21st century?

Hey Laurend, Your blatherings are most welcome by myself and others. It is great having a strong and intelligent woman on the boards who is not afraid to speak her mind. I'm lovin it!

Susannah

Thanks, Susannah! I just wish I could get Gailannr to answer my questions. Oh well, she can't expect someone to change if she won't explain why she's bitching.

Hey Laurend, Your blatherings are most welcome by myself and others. It is great having a strong and intelligent woman on the boards who is not afraid to speak her mind. I'm lovin it!:clap2: :biggrin1:

Susannah

And yep, I agree. You always have an interesting point of view and the facts to back it up to pass along to the rest of us. :clap2: Keep on "blathering," grrl.

A further note on gun control: a letter to the editor published yesterday in The Globe and Mail (one of the Canada's two national newspapers) mentioned that the author had googled gun deaths by country and had discovered - no surprise - that stricter gun laws result in fewer deaths. In Japan, where gun ownership is illegal, the gun death rate in 1994 was 0.05 per 100,000 people. Canada's rate was 4.31 and the U.S. clocked in at 14.24.

The writer, a Bruce MacDonald of Vancouver, passes along a few other interesting statistics which he had culled. About 5,000 American children under the age of 15 die annually due to gun-related activities; fatalities of this type are virtually unheard of in Japan. He also mentions that in those Canadian provinces where there are fewer gun-owning households, there are fewer gun-related fatalities.

Is wide-scale ownership of guns by private citizens really necessary in the 21st century?

You know, pro-gin rights groups are always citing instances where a gun owner was able to protect themselves, but I wonder if anyone has analyzed the statistical probability of an instance occuring where they would need to protect themselves with a gun (where no other way of protection was available - no alarm, etc.) versus the probability that they would accidentally injure themselves or someone else with said gun. In other words, are they more likely to need the gun to protect themselves or are they more likely to have an accident with it? It would be interesting to find out.

Um, pro-gun in the above post, not pro-gin. Damned smiley-faces when I try to edit!

Well, if there were no gun stores nobody - criminals included - would be able to buy them, would they? This is the situation in Japan where guns are entirely illegal. Up here in Canada our criminals import them from south of the border.

And what is with this smiley-face lunacy when one tries to edit??? It has been happening to all of us since our elegant new format came into existance. It's quite a pain in the dictionary!

P.S. I think that I am pro-gin.:heh:

P.S. I think that I am pro-gin.

Most people are!

Personally, I'm pro-gin.

Nope, not pro-gin, pro-vodka. Gin tastes like pine trees.

I wonder, however, if we have run in to the problem that if we do make gun ownership harder, how do we get rid of the ones aready out there?

Nope, not pro-gin, pro-vodka. Gin tastes like pine trees.

Keep in mind, however, that the well-known naturalist, Euell Gibbons, reminded us that "you know, many part of a pine tree are edible".

I don't know what the solution is. We Americans love our guns. I think that if guns weren't so readily available, there would be far less gun homicides.

I used to think the NRA was a great organization, but since Columbine I think they're deplorable.

Hey Angel, Australia is a nation of gun haters on the whole. Lets make love more people and have less weapons and violence!:biggrin1: Susannah

:biggrin1: :biggrin1: Sounds to me like a plan

Gin is nothing without tonic.