ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

The statistics suggest that you are incorrect. Harvard, the National Institutes of Health, and the Israeli Defense Forces all have studies that point to gun ownership actually increasing suicide risk.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/suicides-vs-handgun-...

EDIT: Furthermore, the argument that guns don't kill people is intellectually lazy. Guns are designed to kill things. That is their only purpose. Period.

Note, in my comment above when I state "an inanimate object", I am referring to a gun. For you to take that statement and expand it to an extreme such as nuclear weapons is rather childish on your part.

Since we've started into childish manner of discussion, are you suggesting then that someone has used a nuclear weapon to commit suicide and therefore we should help prevent suicides by banning all nuclear weapons? Or are you suggesting that the banning of personal ownership of nuclear weapons is justified because too many people can easily commit suicide with them? I'm just trying to understand your stance as it pertains to this discussion.

Now, as for your question. No, I do not see the government restricting access to nuclear weapons as a disgusting abuse of power. To make your argument on a far more sane and realistic point, I do not disagree with the government restricting access to fully automatic weaponry either.

How do I justify what you probably see as a clear hypocrisy? Easy, because it's not. The government is fully within its rights to restrict access to things it deems too dangerous to the nation's people as a whole. If someone can convince me that personal ownership of handguns is a danger to the nation's people as a whole, I would likely change my stance. I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

So, do you actually have a comment about my position that it is a disgusting use of power for the government to restrict a person's access to an inanimate object, in this case a gun since you are having troubles following along, because of how another individual may or may not use the same inanimate object on themselves without harm to another person? Or shall we continue with comparing childish extremes?

Because if that's your stance, we really need to take a hard look at the inanimate objects we interact with on a daily basis.

By the way, we today have access to all kinds of things that a hundred years ago people would be shocked we have such easy access to. There is a good chance that personal ownership of nuclear weapons, depending on your definition I suppose, will be a strong possibility sometime in the future. Most likely well beyond our lifespans, which is probably a good thing.

I apologize for my harsh tone here, but this is yet another pet peeve of mine that often comes up needlessly in discussions such as this.

In the Milwaukee operation that inspired this bit of investigative journalism, it turned out even worse than that. The career criminals quickly recognized the undercover agents for what they were and proceeded to con the !$@%$@ pants off of them. The whole operation eventually fell apart when the agents got looted, including having the weapons stolen from one of their cars while it was parked at a completely different location.

There was absolutely no benefit to the community from this. The agents baited a bunch of sometimes clueless folks who mostly weren't anything worse than your garden variety juvenile delinquents into committing crimes serious enough to send them to jail. So they created an acute increase in the crime rate, which then permanently decreases the ability of members of the community to secure gainful employment, thereby also creating a chronic increase in the crime rate, expanding social burdens on the community, and reducing the community's economic productivity overall. This in a city that's already completely falling apart both socially and economically thanks to >50% of its African-American males having prior convictions. In return for the pleasure of getting to do this, they supplied the local street gangs with free weapons and, briefly, a convenient source of income.