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[jimmy the one]

38. evidence dates back centuries

icon: You are perfectly free to believe that the presence of guns compels otherwise peaceful individuals into murderous rages, but you'll have to offer up some actual evidence if you want us to believe it as well..

Evidence abounds of this phenomenon, you are definitely not keeping up with the class. Otherwise peaceful individuals can indeed suddenly snap & commit crimes & the results are far more dangerous when they have a gun. No it's not a widespread phenomenon that would happen to myself nor most all gun owners, but it does indeed occur.

As far as evidence goes, it dates back centuries, referring to the weapon of the day of course:

a quote by Homer in The Odyssey: "The blade itself incites to deeds of violence"

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. Alexander Hamilton

True, there were firearms in Hamilton's day, but that old kentucky musquette was a single shot slow loading firearm which couldn't do near the overall damage a modern rifle could, so the sword was more deadly in Ham's opinion.
That slow loading musket was the firearm of the day when the 2ndA was written.

acalix (1 post) If guns became less available to criminals due to declining ownership we should expect that the percentage of gun murders over murders to decline. They did not.

As pointed out in my previous post, newbie, firearm related gun violence rate did indeed decline during that period, & murder is just a percent or two of total firearm related gun violence. So you lose as well as icon.