Re: Sarah Balfour Re: Once upon a time....
"....how many school massacres have there been in the UK in the past 20 years....." I suggest you stop shrieking soundbites long enough to go do some research here (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_primary_schools). School Attacks are still very rare in the UK, but in the same year as the Dunblane attack there was the attack on St Luke's Church of England infants' school in Wolverhampton where the attacker used a machete - quick, ban all knives! Indeed, in recent years the worst spate of school attacks have been in China (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_(2010–2011)), which has very tight gun control, and in those cases the weapons used ranged from hammers through knives to petrol (quick, ban all hammers and petrol as well!).
".....Whatever you think of America's gun laws, you can't argue with facts....." Simple argument that debunks what you like to call "facts" - when was the last time you heard of a massacre at a gun range compared to a school anywhere in the World? Ever stop to wonder why?
".....There's summat inherently wrong about a country which thinks it's okay to give firearms to kids." In the UK, I fired my first firearm at about 8, owned my own rifle in my teens, and I haven't felt any urge to go shooting school kids, thanks. There are quite literally millions of guns in the hands of the US public (indeed, there are thousands still in public hands in the UK) yet school shootings are rare. By your "logic", if giving guns to kids turned them into mindless murderers then there would be mass shootings every day. What people like you need to do is stop looking at the weapon as the problem and start looking at the excuses that allow the nutters to get guns in the first place, which is largely due to an inability to deal with said nutters without people (no doubt, just like you) complaining about "rights". I suggest you start here (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=joBMq6b4MmE).