I still want to know when detterant meant to stop someone who is already commiting a crime. Because you say that you feel safer with your concealed carry, but your average joe junkie wont know or possible be in a state of mind to go through the thought process of whether or not you may be armed.
Also, as I already said, if someone is trying to rob you and already has a gun, they will probably have it out and ready to threaten you with it, so they are quite likely already on edge, so makeing sudden movements (such as, reaching for a gun), could quite possibly set them over the edge and have them shoot you. Now, unless you have an instant reaction time, and have hands that are somehow able to unholster, aim with any accuarcy at all (as in, aim it so that when you shoot your assailant wont be able to shoot back before he dies), all before the assailant can have his reaction time and just pull the trigger (after all, he did have a weapon out didn't he? and a knife can also be used on you if you make sudden movements around a jittery assailant).
I mean, isnt the idea of laws meant to discourage people from commiting crimes in the first place?
Also, problem with the seatelt analogy, you cannot be seriously injured someone else mearly because they didnt have a gun (wasnt wearing a seatbelt), even though you may very well have been armed yourself had been armed (wearing a seatbelt) and used said gun on the person who was trying to shoot up the place (either the sudden loss of movement of the car without the sudden loss of movement of your body or the thing that caused the crash
![:confused:](../../smileys/confused_new.gif)
), but you still got hurt because someone next to you (seat next to you) didnt think to be ready for someone to shoot up the place (car crash) so they didnt arm themselves (wear a seatbelt) and... somehow... this lack of a gun... somehow got you injured (the forces of the crash caused their unseatbelted body to ram into yours, just like an unrestrained piece of cargo).
I realy did try, but unfortunately, the fact remains that wearing a seatbelt may protect you, but unless everyone wears a seatbelt in a car, then you basicly have unrestrained cargo that can fly into the people who are wearing seatbelts, while when it comes to guns, only one person needs to shoot the guy shooting up the place.
Also, it seems that your pro gun lobby suffers from certain fallacies. Because you can have gun restrictions without completely banning all guns and making people turn in their guns. It could quite easily involve having stronger requirements for ownership, better checks before allowing someone to purchase a gun, not to mention taking action to stop the major sources of the imported illegal weapons (because people who know how to get an illegal weapon are not going to buy one off some joe black market salesman off the street that could have crimes connected to it), and most importantly, at least try to get some semblance of law conformity, even if it is just makeing sure that the differant laws in differant places make gradual changes instead of allowing someone to just got a few miles further to a place where the laws are remarkably differant. Or heck, just make it so not matter where you buy the gun, you get subject to your areas laws (you seem to be ok with breaking international sovereignty by baning US citizens from buying anything cuban even if they are overseas, so what does it matter if you make it so someone has to purchase a gun according to the state they live in).
The main problem is that the scare-moungers in the NRA like to say that if you prevent the dangerous wackos from getting guns, then the perfectly fine people must be next. (After all, they seem to think that shooting the assailant is better than any project that could be designed to stop the guy from becoming an assailant in the first place)
Before you go off at me about makin guns harder to get making the market for illegal guns more attractive. I would point out that professional criminals (organized crime types) can get their guns from connections outside the country and dont use those street corner sales (after all, they want a gun that cannot be traced to them, because plea bargains would be attractive to low level criminals such as street corner illegal gun sellers), and your gang type criminals also buy their guns illegaly to begin with. So basicly, most of the people who would be affected by restrictions are quite likely the type who ALREADY buy their guns illegaly.