Yes Mr Archer, knife crime has significantly increased specifically in London amongst young disadvantaged males. But what point are you making? Police numbers and social initiatives have been massively reduced. Are you saying that guns should be made readily available into this political climate!? I’m sure that the UK would experience as much gun crime as the USA if guns were as easy to obtain. There are colllective and social factors that contribute massively to violence that are consistently ignored by you and other contributors.

I live in the UK which similarly to the US is a society riven with the politics of fear, envy, discrimination and poverty. Over here we probably have more privilege and engrained social barriers but less paranoia generally. Throw guns into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. That's why I feel much safer living in such a political climate without guns. That's why me and my children are much safer living in such a political climate without guns. If there are countries with more or as many guns per capita as the USA and people are not shooting each other or themselves at such an alarming rate then you need to ask the question why? The answer is not because there aren't enough guns - obviously.
Publius. There is no logic to your argument. I wasn't aware that death by gunshot was deemed accidental!?

Retson makes a valid point. In the C18 the fear of invasion and corruption of a fledgling state legitimised gun ownership and the idea of a collective militia. Today this is a form of collective paranoia which the right to bear arms helps to maintain. The purpose right to bear arms is therefore the maintenance of this collective madness and the production of massive profits for the gun manufacturers.

Mike, I am assuming that you think my religion is secular and humanist -congratulations. I am sure your religion deems that man is stained with sin, inevitably flawed and must seek his own individual salvation in the next world. I despair at this world view. True salvation lies in peaceful and caring relationships between man and his fellow man and dismantling the beliefs and structures that prevent this, through reason and argument, until there is more that unites us than divides us. This is not a false narrative. It is hopeful and recognises man's potential and the beauty of this world. It may be deemed emotional (but not irrational) and if it is, I am proud to wear the badge.

To invoke genocide and massacre in defence of individual gun ownership is naïve and ignorant of the complex religious, racial, national and political factors which are the true cause of such crimes against humanity. Look to address the true causes. Are we just accepting that human violence and brutality is natural law?

Guns are specifically designed to destroy bodies and minds, not make them strong.

To kill or to disarm? The inalienable right to defend yourself should not be conflated with the right to own a gun or to use it to kill someone. The Gita is an allegorical story depicting man's internal struggle with choice and conscience which is the story of everyman... the quest for Dharma: doing the right thing at the right time.

See that 's the problem with a constitution. It nails you to set of ideals that inevitably lose their reference and relevance. In today's world this quote sounds elitist and is fundamentally flawed by it's association of morality with religion.

But they will eventually.

I believe in certain inalienable rights Mike, I do not belive that the right to posess firearms is one of them and its elevation to this status robs the debate of any context or historical relevance. As I said ‘autistic’ adherence to what you believe ‘is’ leading to dysfuntional attachment. Just out of cuiriosity, do you draw a line anywhere on the civil ownership of military hardware? Rocket Launcher, flame thrower, etc

The right to bear arms had historical justification but autistic adherence to the the 2nd amendment is a grossly dysfunctional attachment and a denial that things change. It has also led uniquely to a situation in the U.S. where high school shootings are a twice weekly occurrence. This outdated right does not promote safety and security but threatens the safety and security of vulnerable children. The right to life supersedes all and anything that threatens it can have no justification.

I’m guessing that the majority if not all posters above have not shot another human being with a hand gun.Given the effective dispatch range of side arms as Mr Shuttleworth points out it would require skill and emotional stability. I now notice that your President in reaction to the 19th high school shooting so far this year in the U.S is suggesting that some teachers are trained and equipped to shoot evil psychos with bad intent. Probably not an aspect of the job most teachers would have considered a requirement. As it remains the case that the majority of people and elected representatives are indifferent to the fact that death by gunshot is monitized in the U.S. I am sure that this ‘right’ of gun ownership will remain. However I once remember seeing part of a standup routine by Chris Rock where he suggested that there should be bullit control not gun control - bullits should cost 5,000 dollars each then you wouldn’t need gun control and if someone got shot then you know they probably deserved it. Sick joke in the circumstances but nowhere near as sick as U.S. gun control or your president’s peverse response.

I believe this to be true

I wonder what Keynes and Lenin for that matter would have made of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as attempts to debauch national currencies? Surely an indication that value and worth is ever more relative rather than intrinsic as these currencies doesn't really exist in the material world.

With Interest!

I disagree with this quote in a direct sense but would find some credit in a more general interpretation. The meaning of peace is not the lack of opposition to socialism or anything for that matter but the acceptance of difference and the rights of those who express difference. When difference cannot be tolerated then we're in trouble. Motivation for much of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto was reactive to poverty and misery directly observed in places like Salford where Engles lived among the working class factory, mine and mill workers in West Manchester in the slums of the time and where people lived like animals on subsistent wages. The means of production were owned for the profit of the wealthy few. Their demand for change came from their perceived need for the compassionate redistribution of wealth for the benefit of all. Their perception was that people were enslaved by Capitalism and would be set free by Socialism to share in a common way accepting that we are all interdependent on many levels. This is predicated on the acceptance of universal human and worker rights and an acceptance of difference certainly in respect to individual needs and relationship to the means of production. Having said that, much that has been done in the name of socialism that ignores this plea for humanity.

No Mr Archer, the complaint is about the fact that Thatcher dismantled redistributive wealth mechanisms, destroyed jobs, lives and communities and turned the UK into a divided country dependent on a monetarist rather than a mixed capitalist economy. The last redistributive mechanisms - the NHS and the Welfare State are now teetering because of years of tory underfunding and mismanagement. She and her policies were a disaster for the UK.

Well said Robert. Thatcher slavishly followed monetarist ideology and policy that changed the UK from a mixed capitalist economy to monetarist "all eggs in one basket" economy - manufacturing in the UK now accounts for about 10% of GDP. In the process she destroyed communities and wiped out major industries. Through mass privatisation and deregulation she created division and greater inequality. She is also credited with the dumbing down of political debate in the UK indicated by this (no doubt) scripted sound bite. She and her policies are greatly despised by many in the UK.

"give peace a chance" John Lennon. Another peacemaker to die a violent death. While there are more guns than guitars in the world then peace doesn't have a chance despite the teaching and the preaching. There is a huge gap between the formal teachings of Christ and the substantive practice of his (alleged) followers. Self interest in the form of salvation of the individual soul and the promise of life ever rather than the pursuit of Christian values on earth - kindness and compassion to ones fellow man - lie at the heart of this. As Banksy says: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all men (terms and conditions apply)

Re earlier comments concerning America's charitable act in entering WW2. America entered the war when Germany declared war on America in December 1941 and prior material support was hardly given without ties. This certainly chimes with the benevolence for benefit stance of many in these posts.

This references the idea that the well adjusted nurturing nuclear family is the bed rock of society and the state just meddles uninvited in 'family business'. This negates the idea of shared social responsibility of all that attempts to ensure the child of the violent, addicted, poor, disenfranchised, single parent has some access to education and an alternative way of life.
Given Maximus' comments I now have a vision of MLK running around his Memphis hotel room in his shorts shouting "where de white girls at ?" Edifying!!

I'm not sure that literacy and education are antidotes to racism, sexism and rampant consumerism however, the fact that universal literacy and the opportunity of education remains an aspiration in the modern world shames us all.

Truth is a very rare commodity in a culture of fake news and disagreement. If it is distilled down to what is universally acknowledged and undisputed (?Newtonian physics) then all else is conjecture and opinion and the truth exists independent of knowledge. I'd agree with some of the above sentiment that being truthful to oneself and others we come into contact with is useful as a guiding principle.

I often find that using the prefix "in America" makes the absurd sound believable.

This quotation obviously relates to the political 'cause' of Indian independence. A cause worth dying for but not worth killing for in Ghandi's view. The lasting solution is always negotiation and reason, a peaceful revolution, and Ghandi would have been guided by the Hindu concept of Ahimsa or non harming which ironically gives more intellectual wiggle room when it comes to debating justifiable violence than the Biblical commandment 'Thou Shalt not Kill'. It was the (Christian) British management of the process of independence between 1937 and 1947 that led to India's partition and caused over 1 million Indian deaths in a few short months. Another shameful British Imperialist f**k up.