Yeah, I'm not sure I like this actually. All this really does it put data caps in the hands of the government - doesn't mean they're going away. I'd rather not have them at all, but if they're going to happen I'd rather the providers control them than the FCC.

Yes. That doesn't matter - the point still stands. If you take only countries where that isn't the case, you still can't draw a definite line showing that high gun crime is directly linked to gun ownership by the populace - and that still doesn't address the fact that gun deaths in the US are extremely low - low enough that gun death can't even be considered a leading cause of death in the US. Not remotely.

Meant to include the link for accidental deaths for the stats above: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/acc-inj.htm

That link also contains data about traffic deaths - 11.2 per 100,000. Still much higher than gun deaths. So cars are far deadlier than guns.

Your data doesn't pan out, boss. Check this out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list Sort that chart by "Rank by rate of ownership" and you'll see a problem. The US has a relatively high murder rate (compared to 1st-world countries) by firearms, and the US is #1 in gun ownership. But the problem is that Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, and Cyprus are ranked 3, 4, 5 and 6 in gun ownership - and they have very low homicide rates by firearm. The problem that data presents to you argument is that it undeniably demonstrates that gun ownership does not directly affect the murder rate. If it did, you would expect a gradual and more-or-less parallel drop in the murder rate as the gun ownership rates drop as well. But that just isn't the case.

The other interesting point this data makes is the fact that the murder rate by firearms (rate per 100,000 population) is not very high in 1st-world countries. In the US, where the rate is relatively high, less that 3 people are killed each year per 100,000. Cancer, on the other hand, causes 178.7 deaths per 100,000 people in the US ( http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html ) each year. Accidents or inintentional injuries: 38.4 per 100,000 per year.

I'm not purporting to know what the cause of incidents like Newtown and Aurora is; that's beyond my abilities. But what I can say, based on hard data, is that gun ownership is not a direct cause of gun deaths, and gun deaths in the US are not high enough to warrant this kind of fanatical attention. You want to really cut down on senseless violence? Go after cancer and the other big terminal killers. Guns just aren't that big of a problem.

Every business has a phone. Failing that, most folks in the rural US will be happy to make a call for you (on their landline) if you ask nicely and don't look and smell like a bum. Hitch-hiking is a lost art, but in a real pinch even that might work. If you're not in the rural US (meaning you're in the urban US; I don't know how this works elsewhere), you're near a business, and it's gonna have a phone.

Again I ask, how do you think people pre-1995 did this? Just sat in their cars and starved to death?

I guess your argument makes sense if you live deep in the woods somewhere, but if you're as far out as I am your cell phone doesn't work anyway. Most places in the US have plenty of civilization around, and plenty of ways of getting help in an extreme situation like that...

HA! And what do you think people did before everyone had a cell phone? I got my first cell phone in '99 (i think), 13 measly years ago. Believe it or not, you don't actually need one to live.

Now get off my lawn! :)

Essentially what you're pointing out is that capitalism, while admirable in terms of the freedom it provides in its early stages (anyone can start a business and probably be successful just by working hard), eventually always ends in monopolies (eventually those businesses will be bought up or bullied into selling, creating one central mega-power - first one in each market, but eventually even different market verticals are all controlled by the same umbrella corporation - that's why you can buy bullets, baby diapers, and a gallon of milk at the same checkout at Walmart). There has to be a system to keep power decentralized - whether it's by regulation, taxation, incentive - whatever.

The sticky point, though, is that whatever method is used to keep that power decentralized must not either a) infringe on individual freedom, or b) simply make the government the monopoly.

Here are another couple of links: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/12/12/a-comparison-of-the-2008-and-2012-nctc-guidelines/ and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324478304578171623040640006.html.

From what I can tell, it appears to mostly be changes in 1) what information can be gathered, 2) on whom (don't need suspicion of terrorist activity anymore to search through someone's files), 3) how long it can be retained (5 years for innocent people, forever for anyone suspected of criminal activity), and 4) more importantly, the methods that can be used to gather it. In the past, it wasn't possible to do "dragnet" type searches looking for a specific pattern (i.e., show me everyone who searched for "how to make a bomb" on Google in the past 6 months and purchased more than 500 rounds of ammunition), but had to be a search on a specific person of interest (i.e., show me what Mohammad Mohammad searched for on Google last week).

As far as I can tell, there hasn't yet been a change in what actions can be taken based on the findings in that info, but the groundwork for action without due process has been laid for some time already.