?TS: Stay the same.
In his typical way, TS went on to justify his amazing answer with a non-sequitur argument about criminals buying guns in neighboring states. He desperately wants to avoid looking directly at the question posed.
In order for the number of murders to stay the same if all guns magically disappeared, you would have to believe that every single gun murder would be committed with another weapon, including all the multiple murders. Lanza would have killed 27 people with what, a knife, a bomb. Perhaps James Holmes would have clubbed all those people to death in the movie theater. I suppose Loughner and Cho could have used machetes or samurai swords.
The absurdity of this position is so apparent that in the other thread I thought TS was going to avoid answering altogether. I don't think he's a stupid man and I don't think his opinion of me is such that he'd lie and expect me to buy it. That leaves only one possibility that I can think of. His bias for the gun-rights argument is so deep that it blinds him to obvious truths.
If guns magically disappeared, there would be fewer murders and lower rates of violence. It could not be otherwise since 70% of all murders are committed with guns, the most lethal and efficient tool for the job.
The reason TS's sub-conscience cannot allow such an admission is that once it's accepted the entire gun-rights position against gun control crumbles. If proper gun control laws were implemented fewer people would own guns legally and fewer criminals would enjoy the gun availability they do now. Lives would be saved.
