Why do you think that terrorist (I assume you're talking about the London guy) would be trying to cut someone's head off if he were in the USA? As I pointed out, he bought a gun and tried to use it FIRST, which very thankfully didn't work. The knife was not his first choice. He'd certainly have preferred an AR15.
But don't listen to me. Listen to Al Qaeda.
> A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.
> "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," said Gadahn, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
"listen to al Qaeda" yeah that makes sense, murderers always tell the truth right?
You can't buy a fully automatic firearm at a gun show without a background check. Not legally. And not without an ID card. But listen to the murderers and take their word for it because they are honest people.
What you can do is buy anything you want in the world illegally, and in any country you happen to be in, so arguing about the black market is a fraud.
I was fairly confident that buying a fully automatic firearm at a gun show was unlikely to be a matter of "ID + background check" as with buying a semi-automatic (or non-automatic) firearm. See links below (8 and 9 years old; the laws are unlikely to have become more liberal since then) for more info.
My (perhaps inadequate) attempt to summarize the high points from those two sources: such purchases (in those states where ownership is legal; in some it is not) require the buyer to undergo an extensive (and apparently very slow: 50-90 days, after payment for the (by definition very expensive) fully automatic legally transferable firearm has been delivered to the seller) check process: an additional Transfer Fee of $200 must be paid, and passport photos and fingerprints submitted, with the application, which must be (before submission to the Feds (BATFE)) signed by the "chief law enforcement officer" of the area you live in. Annual inspections by the Feds of the premises where the fully-automatic firearm is stored are apparently also part of the "ownership contract" which the owner enters into with the Federal Government.
I suspect they were not using the right terminology; non-technical people don't know what the word "automatic" means, and some confuse "automatic rifle" for "assault rifle". You don't need an automatic rifle to inflict mass casualties (Orlando, Dallas) and even Western soldiers, I gather, rarely use full auto fire mode in battle. It's usually tactically unnecessary and empties the magazine in a few seconds.
That is quite possibly true, and if they don't understand the language being used then they should not have a part of the conversation, should they? We don't let children participate in adult conversations for the same reason, they don't understand the subjects and can't contribute helpfully to the topic.
I'm not saying ignorance makes them children, I'm saying ignorance makes their opinions unhelpful noise.
But don't listen to me. Listen to Al Qaeda.
> A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.
> "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," said Gadahn, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/11/politics/al-qaeda-video/in...
> violence is a problem unrelated to the prevalence of weaponry
Isn't this a bit like saying that soldering is unrelated to the prevalence of soldering irons?