For example is there any evidence that governments in places where guns are not widely available (e.g. the UK) go round forcing people out of their homes and suchlike?
Just because such things aren't happening
right now is irrelevant to the point.
Your failure to learn history is not evidence in this thread.
But all the evidence of modern Western democratic states suggests that people being armed really isn't necessary to that end.
Of course that's what it suggests. That's why we have all these democracies, after all, because unarmed people nicely petitioned their monarchs a couple hundred years ago or so for their independence and it was expediently granted.
Get real!
People don't need guns in a democracy
so long as the democracy remains democratic. But what happens when those in power decide they want just a little more power? Or a lot more power? What happens when a democracy stops being a democracy and starts being a dictatorship... and then a tyranny?
How do the people stand up and say 'enough is enough' when they've nothing to stand on?
Death rate stats in the US suggest that guns are "too dangerous" don't they?
No. Because despite repeated requests by crashfrog, no one in this thread has yet laid out the mechanism by which guns cause people to commit violent crimes. A better conclusion to draw from statistics on violent crime is that the U.S. is a violent country. After all, it is
people who commit those crimesnot guns with legs.
Jon
Love your enemies!