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Couldn't agree more with the above comment. This is an issue of people, not guns. Mexico is a prime example of how an unarmed populous gets overrun by criminals who have access to REAL assault weapons. It is illegal to own an automatic weapon in the US. Those who have them are criminals by default. The AR-15 or AK-47 platforms today are nothing more than an average semi-automatic hunting rifle and that is what they are used for as well as sporting competition and target/range shooting. Assuming the AR-15 is the problem is also assuming that those who own them are potential murderers. That is not the case. I have several handguns and rifles that I used for strictly target shooting and hopefully someday competition. I don't even hunt. I can't kill anything unless it is attacking me or my family and that includes humans. The last thing I'd want to do is shoot someone but I will if someone invades my home in the middle of the night. This is all to say that a vast majority of folks who own firearms are like me, peaceful law abiding citizens. The most important thing to remember is the Mexico example. When only police and military are allowed to have weapons, the country becomes corrupt and very dangerous as is Mexico today. The other point I'd like to make is that these murder stats that are being thrown around have no basis. The proper way to do that is to say "of a population of 330,000,000 people, 30 people a year are killed by guns. It's a per capita stat. So when you compare the US to other smaller countries, the total population should be considered. We are a huge country. Statistically, the more people, the more crime. It's pretty simple and not a stat that is valid. The other issue is that many gun deaths are accidental or suicides. I have not seen any mention of this. It all seems to be bundled in with the "murder" category. How about disclosing all stats.....the total population, death by suicide, deaths by murder, deaths by accidents. 65% of all gun deaths are due to .22 cal firearms. Think about it. 35% are by the above, murder, accident and suicide. If we are going to throw out numbers, let's throw them all out for everyone to see the reality. 30 people a year out of 330,000,000 is equal to .0000000909% of our population (30 / 330,000,000) of people getting killed yearly. For a country as large as we are that is minuscule. Though they are still human beings, were some gang bangers or other types of criminals killing each other? Why is there no mention of that? Lets be fair about this debate. Look at the stats properly and compare to other countries. We are so huge there is going to be murders, rapes, thefts and every other kind of crime known and there will be a lot, but compare it to the size of the country. Use the numbers properly. Don't sway them to make them look like our country is full of murderers. That is just not the case. We also have to consider the incidence of major psychological issues we have in our country. Again, do it per capita to be fair. One more point.....there was an incident in China where a madman stabbed many small children to death with a big knife. If there are no guns, these nutcases will find another way. The US is not alone in this type of mass murder. Again, look at the population size. China is more populous than we are. I guarantee there are a lot of mass murders in China and likely Russia too. Again, look at the numbers of people in these countries and use math....if you have the ability to think logically and look at stats. I honestly think that many of these anti-gun people don't know how to look at things mathematically and also don't want to because they want to sway the numbers in their favor. That is wrong and unfortunately too many others don't know enough to look at this mathematically. All they see is "guns = murders" and can't think past that. Australia has a very small population so it is much easier to deal with issues concerning the population. If they had 330,000,000 people, it would be a completely different story.