Beo: You think I like the Democrats? You haven't been paying attention.
However, they're a manageable evil. One that plays by the rules and can be dealt with. And they're ****in' spineless to boot, which is always nice in a dominant party. If I had a real option, I'd go for "bloody insurrection", but I don't. Can't even get the lazy ****ers I see these days to picket, for chrissakes.
Since when did Bush ever bring us out of a recession? Excuse me, but the economy's if anything more ****ed up than it was after the crash. And if changing the name of a Christmas tree is really the best you can come up with, particularly given the excerable things Bush has done involving gay rights in the name of his personal religious beliefs, maybe you had best take another look, hm?
About the guns: One in four non-hunting uses of a gun is for criminal purposes. Your statistic. Since rifles and shotguns are perfectly adapted to hunting, far better than, say, the sorts of weapons people typically use for "personal defense" and crime (rifles are a bit too hard to move around to be effective in crime unless you're shooting the wife at home or something), we can say then that roughly 1/4 of pistols used are used as aids to murder, rape, robbery, and basically any other unequivocally wrong crime you can think of. More isn't okay if it's not more by much, as the evil of a gun in the hands of a psychopath far outweighs the good of one in the hands of a responsible person.
You think that's a good ratio?
Rest of gun law: Yeah, right. You know how much money is spent every year on banning, say, I dunno, drugs? Funny, you wouldn't know it, it's easier for me to get an eigth than a good-quality vodka. Criminalizing gun ownership would just make gun owners criminals, wouldn't make every pistol in the country up and dissapear, and once a criminal you've got far less to lose in committing other crimes. You think gun crime is bad now? Imagine when all the gun nuts in the country (not even dealing with the regular owners, the guys who have like a freakin' class 3 in their yard must at least number in the tens of thousands. Lucky bastards.)
Besides, you're missing the point of the Second Amendment. Guns are a deterrent, but not particularly so to crime. A tyrant in a well-armed country is a dead tyrant, and there are few governments so stable that the threat of tyrrany isn't a pressing one.
Don't like guns? That's okay, you'll probably never see a real one then, unless you live in the country or spend time in a sporting goods store. Some of us would prefer to have them, and you'll be damned glad of it if ever more serious trouble than a recession happens. Personally, I can't see how anyone could trust cops with 'em, the pigly thugs they are in my experience, without wanting one themselves. But then, at least half of the gun-related deaths in my home area came from the piggies.