[quote]Talking to American friends, I always sense a kind of despair that the gun lobby is too powerful to challenge and that nothing will ever change. The same resignation was evident in President Obama's rather lifeless reaction to the Washington shooting last week. There is absolutely nothing he can do, which underscores the fact that America is in a jam and that international pressure may be one way of reducing the slaughter over the next generation. This has reached the point where it has ceased to be a domestic issue. The world cannot stand idly by.[/quote] So much BS in that article. The problem isn't a weapons problem, it's a cultural/societal problem. The vast majority of firearm homicide is gang-related violence. Want to reduce that number? Educate the youth and make an effort to steer them away from those violent lifestyles, while simultaneously putting an effort into shutting down gangs. Some of the worst acts of violence were caused not with firearms, but bags of fertilizer and explosives. Killing people isn't new, and it isn't going to end anytime soon. The only reason guns are in the spotlight is because they're big, black, and scary and people don't have any legitimate information about them aside from the garbage the American Media Circus throws out on an almost daily basis.