Haha, the right to "bare" arms? I will back that, I'm wearing a tank top. :D

Have you seen those shirts that say "right to bear arms" and there's a bear in a tank top, showing its arms? As in, bear is the adjective of arms? They make me giggle. Annnnd, I'm the most immature person on vegweb.

Have you seen those shirts that say "right to bear arms"

A funny one I saw said, "Support your right to arm bears". It had a bear with an assaut rifle.

Listen to this

(From the movie Open Season)

Paul Westerberg - Right To Arm Bears

Who got it? Who's got it? We got it!
It's the right to arm bears
It's the right to arm bears
Well my dear, let's show 'em some fear, and see who easily scares
It's the right to arm bears
Mr. Bruin, what you doin'?
Mr. Buck, you takin' aim
We're going to be the party
And they're going to be the game
It's the right to arm bears
It's the right to arm bears
The Constitution is an institution
Changing our ambition
The solution now is obvious:
Ban all the ammunition
Hail to the Chief with a shotgun in his teeth
It's the right to arm bears
Mr. Hunter, eyes are mighty red
It's the right to arm bears
Whose going to eat you when you're dead?
It's the right to arm bears
Caught in the headlight, see who's going to fight
It's the right, it's the right to arm bears

I think if you hide guns from children, it will be come the "forbidden fruit" and they will seek them out.  If, however, you are open and show your children the guns, show them exactly how dangerous they can be if not used correctly, and teach them proper gun safety, then they won't really care.

I shot my first gun when I was 9, grew up around them, always lectured about gun safetly to the point that I would just roll my eyes.  I was a common practice for me growing up to hear gun shots in the back due to my parents "plinking" (shooting coffee cans and milk jugs full of water).  I couldn't care less, I knew where to avoid going, and did my own thing.  I just believe that being open with kids and teaching them right from wrong at all ages is very important.

This is similar to me....I grew up around guns, my dad was the manager of a gun store my whole childhood, he taught me how to shoot a gun at 7 (I cried the whole time) and we had guns lying all over the house.  My dad still has guns stashed in the weirdest places in his house.  I always found it amusing.  But we knew not to touch them.  The fear was instilled in us at a very young age.  You touch it, you get your ass beat.
So guns have never been a big deal to me.  My dad really wants Andy and I to get a gun.  I'm not opposed to it, they're just so damn expensive. 

America's gun culture scares the s*** out of me, I would not feel safe there at all.

As someone who has had to hide the firearms of my stepparents to keep them from attempting to kill my pets and possibly themselves, I can assure you it isn't safe in the least.

America's gun culture scares the s*** out of me, I would not feel safe there at all.

Your emotions are completely irrational, and are contradicted by history and economics (i.e. the game theory), if not simple common sense.  What you advocate is a complete monopoly on power by the government - an institution that has outright killed hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century alone!

When everyone has free speech that's called freedom.  When only the government has free speech that's called a dictatorship.  But the right to protect yourself is even more important than mere speech, if they can just shoot you for saying something they don't like!

Any country with a disarmed helpless populace has its head in the guillotine, and the chord may be pulled on you at any time!

Legality of guns = more easy to obtain = lots of lovely columbine type goings on.
In the UK, guns aren't easily obtainable and we have low gun crime in comparison to the USA.

No, you have it absolutely backwards.  Please think and research before you speak, will you?  Columbine type events happen precisely in places where there are no guns -- like schools and gun-restricted military bases -- because no one is able to fight back.  Criminals will always have guns.  Duh!  Did you expect the perpetrators of Columbine to magically be unable to enter the gun free zone in their school?!  The only thing your legislation ensures is that their victims will be helpless!

Areas of USA where crime is lowest have the highest rates of individual gun ownership and least restrictions, while areas where crime is highest have the most gun control.  When gun laws are tightened, crime goes up.  When gun laws are loosened, crime goes down.  Every single time!

I find it pretty funny when people think owning a pistol puts them on the level of the government/military (come on, like you could fight off a SWAT)

It's not about "fighting them off", it's all about raising the cost of tyranny to make it economically infeasible.  Mandatory Solzhenitsyn quote:

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."

Even a pistol in every home would make a major government crackdown a lot more difficult.  Of course a couple of gas-operated selective-fire assault rifles are even better.  ;)

or even an armed robber (who has the element of surprise, and probably of experience).

And the solution you propose to that is what, waiting for the police to pick up your corpse?

Millions of people have been successful at defending themselves with firearms, and the mere possibility of someone in the house being armed is an effective deterrent from the crime ever taking place at all.  The armed robber is at a disadvantage because he doesn't know the layout of the house, how many people are in it, how many are armed, etc.  Armed robbery only pays if you know the people inside aren't armed - then it's a slam dunk as long as you can act fast enough to avoid the police.

If weapons are freely available, that just shifts the tyranny from the elected officials to the wealthy elite.

Everyone has equal negative Rights, including the Right to Life.  The richest person cannot kill the poorest and get away with it - and that's not some feel-good slogan, that's a natural economic fact that emerges in a free market.  If Bill Gates gets away with killing a homeless bum today, he might come after you next, therefore it is in everyone's best interest to unite and stop him.

Furthermore, even in a 100% free society most people would delegate their self-defense rights to professionals, that is neighborhood security guards and other private defense agencies, with substantial spill-over and trickle-down benefits for society as a whole.  It is in the best interest of some rich guy you've never heard of to help catch the burglar in your neighborhood, lest that burglar affects the insurance costs at his bank or comes after him next!

We go from a nanny state to feudalism.  Yeah, that's SO much better.  Weapons and violence won't overcome crime and warfare.

The "nanny state" is a form of feudalism adapted to milking as much wealth as possible out of a modern serf, who is able to function in sophisticated service-oriented economy of the 21st century.

Gun culture is pointless vanity - you can't honestly expect to make the world a better place by filling it with machines of death and destruction.

You are experiencing magical thinking.  You somehow believe that if only Mommy Government and her enforcers had absolute power then the world would be perfect.  That is stupid for two reasons, the first being that people criminal enough to want to hurt you are also criminal enough to want to hurt you with weapons that are on Mommy Government's "no no" list.  Even more importantly - power corrupts.  While an all-powerful government will not slaughter you outright, it will only keep you around for as long as you're useful.  It can do anything it wants to you and you will not be able to resist.

Legality of guns = more easy to obtain = lots of lovely columbine type goings on.
In the UK, guns aren't easily obtainable and we have low gun crime in comparison to the USA.

No, you have it absolutely backwards.  Please think and research before you speak, will you?  Columbine type events happen precisely in places where there are no guns -- like schools and gun-restricted military bases -- because no one is able to fight back.  Criminals will always have guns.  Duh!  Did you expect the perpetrators of Columbine to magically be unable to enter the gun free zone in their school?!  The only thing your legislation ensures is that their victims will be helpless!

Areas of USA where crime is lowest have the highest rates of individual gun ownership and least restrictions, while areas where crime is highest have the most gun control.  When gun laws are tightened, crime goes up.  When gun laws are loosened, crime goes down.  Every single time!

No, I don't have it backwards. The boys obtained the guns pretty easily thanks to the ability to sell guns easily and to get a gun licence at ridiculous ages in the USA. So take that condescending tone and shove it up where the sun don't shine. It's clear you're unaware of how easy someone can get a gun in your country. Any teen can get into their dads gun cabinet and woo, columbine here they come!

You do realise that criminals can get guns that are stolen, right? Or they just down right own them in general.

Your countries gun crime is despicable and you think it's because of gun control? It's because of the fact that practically anyone can get a gun so easily, be it from the stolen or just applying for one. Even in illinois you can get a gun license as a baby, that's how ridiculous your country is.

You don't need a gun to defend yourself, our country has proven that, and proven that inability to obtain guns easily = less gun crime. Your average criminal is usually someone who was normal before hand then just turns to a life of crime for whatever reason. Because very few citizens in the UK own guns, any of those who do turn to a life of crime tend to opt more for a knife which is legal to own over 21. Hence why knife crime is high here.

As I said before, if other countries can do it, why the hell can't yours?