once you shoot a robber or a mugger - you deny him a right to a fair trial... your point is that he has a gun and is threatening your life.. the gun control point is, that there should be NO guns in people's hands... hunting gear excluded... there are many countries where that is the law of the land... of course, it is not American way... but our way has brought us to too many avoidable tragedies... supposedly there are 300 million firearms in the hands of private individuals in the US. I am sure there are 3 billion knives inthe circulation... people kill other people with knives too - but how many people can one kill with a knife and how many he can kill with a semi-auto weapon....

by the same argument, we should be able to buy bazookas - why not?... it can be born on a person...

while i am personally for the far extreme, i am totally ok with banning the MAN-HUNTING weapons, and i am ok to let people keep their pistols, revolvers, whatnot... I am for a compromise, i don't think going too far in any direction is good...

And those who keep it must take the "drivers" test, to get a license to have the weapon - at least they should be able to load/unload the weapon, and shoot in the direction of a target...