John,
Jim's point is a valid one, and you are hoisted on your own petard.
So when Jim gets emotional and makes a blanket statement, it's a valid point. When it's assumed that I'm getting emotional and make a pointed statement, I'm hoisted on my own petard? Wow...I'll get back to you when I've managed to wrap my mind around that one...
Guns make it too clean and easy to kill. If all the guy had to hand was a screwdriver, then Jim's friend would more than likely be alive now. Ditto a knife. It is a lot harder to look someone in the eyes whilst struggling to stab them than it is to pull a trigger from a distance.
Too clean and easy to kill? That's alot of power that you're foisting on a gun. It's not a magic wand, that undoes morals & ethics with a single wave, or makes a marksman of an average citizen, it's a mechanical device, a tool. That's akin to saying that owning a computer makes me a hacker. Anyone who has ever hunted, shot competitively or even had to qualify at the gun range can tell you differently. But what do we know...we're evil gun-toting wackjobs with mystical targeting skins divined by our boomsticks...
You have to give ground on the fact that although the gun is an inanimate object, and although the person pulling the trigger IS the killer, it is the weapon that facilitates the death of someone, and with a gun it is SO much easier.
Yes and Cain slew Abel with a rock. That lady drowned her kids with a station wagon. Mao and Stalin used starvation. I fail to see how blaming guns makes the world a better place.
Graham.