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Sory, but I laughed for about 5min straight after reading that (I had to go get a drink to stop lol). What about hunting for food eh? Rather hard to kill a turkey or any bird with a knife.

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Sorry about the beer ban comment, I should explain more. During the 1920's all selling of beer was banned in the US. Within a few months the first "SpeakEasy"s appear, underground bars. Homebrew beer became more and more popular, and pretty soon people in the south needed cars that could out drive the police. SO they made their cars faster and faster. As human nature, they started to race these new speed cars on Daytona beach in Florida. Thats how Nascar, one of americas biggest and most watched sports got its start, bexause of bootleg beer. If guns were to be banned I see the same thing happening. Instead of underground bars, blackmarket gun sales, gunclubs (which are legal as of now, and quite popular, my grandfather attends one regualary), and other means of owning the guns and using the guns would grow to extreme heights. Why? Its american (And maybe human) nature to do things without getting caught. For whatever reason, we try to push our luck, going to extremes.

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I'm also not convinced that every home should have a gun. If it's within reach, the risk of misuse is much higher.
Here in Belgium a few years ago after a some suicides/family killings by policemen, it became a law that policemen weren't allowed to take their weapons home after work. From what I hear it drastically reduced the number of suicides and such.
There will always be lunatics, depressed people, and yes if they really really want to they'll use knives or whatever else, but having a gun within reach makes it just too easy.

Having a lot of people with guns will make criminals more agressive. Now there are quite a lot of carjackings/housejackings (criminals breaking into houses to steal nice cars). Usually there isn't any violence involved - they break in, owners are mostly still asleep, car keys are taken and the cars are stolen.
If everyone will have a gun, burglars/criminals/thieves/.. will probably become more agressive.. if they hear any sound in the house they won't silently go away like now happens but may shoot at the house owners..

So having guns isn't better - if you have an expensive car worth stealing it's almost always very well insured, so it's better to just have it stolen and report it to the insurance company than to risk your life or die because you heard them break into your house..

What should be clear however is what one can and cannot do in the event of a burglary..
From what I heard, in the UK if you use a baseball bat do defend yourself against a burglar, the bat becomes an illegal weapon and you can be convicted because you tried to defend yourself. That's crazy.

In Belgium a few years ago a juweler was convicted because he shot robbers in the back when they ran out of his store.. you can use deadly force to defend your own life, but not to protect your possessions.. the judge decided that at the moment the thieves ran away his life wasn't in danger so he shouldn't have shot them.


On the other hand I'm not against ownership of guns - if people really want them for any legit reason (hunting, sports shooting) they should be able to do so.