Lil_G, sure glad you like the response. You responded to my post, it is only fair that futher explain myself so you have no questions. I appreciate you taking the time to address my questions as well. Agian, I don't excuse Columbia, Brazil, or any other country. Each has people of a different culture and that culture is solely responsible for the way people behave, good or bad. Your reference to Germany is an excellent point. Two things that you must realize about gun control in Germany though. They most stringent gun control was passed in 1936 when Hitler was in power. He could not have armed people opposing his ideas. This information is deatiled on the website of the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), I believe that the link is
www.jpfo.org So before the U.S. entry into WWII Germany already had strict gun control in place and enforced by Nazi's. After WWII the Allied powers oversaw that Germany would not have access to many weapons for fear of a repeat of the post WWI build up of arms. As an additional point Sen Thomas Dodd (D-Ct) and father of current Sen Christopher Dodd (D-Ct) asked the National Archives for an English translation of the German gun laws back in 1967. This translation of the Nazi law was the basis for our Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA '68). To directly address your question, 'If Guns were eliminated in society, would the U.S. populace be subject to any lack of freedoms?' I must say that, beyond the loss of the right to be free to own guns, I don't know. It would depend on many things and the only way to find out would be to try it and if it didn't go well it would be too late to go back. To your last point about the British. I happen to have some friends who are British, some came to the U.S. and are looking forward to citizenship since the UK passed the sweeping gun control laws a few years ago. Since that time, Sept '97 I believe, handguns have been completely illegal yet they are recording a record number of firearm deaths and injuries. These are primarily due to the increased activity of Jamaican Posse drug gangs. If you can get drugs into a country you can get guns in and Great Britain is easier to police being an island nation like Japan. It is so bad that the bobbies may start carrying guns. They didn't have to in the past, but that was then and this is now:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/001023/79/amxti.html