>>>How do you think it was implemented in other countries? If you give something like a $10 - $100 (or any other reward system) for each gun that they turn in, implement the stricter gun laws at the same time, I'm convinced that many guns will be taken out of the society without to much effort.
>>
>>First, something like an AR-15 sells legally for $1000. In a black market it would be easily $5000. Buy-back programs get junk, not real weapons.
>>
>>Anyone who thinks any effort to take serious guns out of society "without too much effort" has absolutely no understanding of the reality of the situation here. The only people who voluntarily turn in guns are those who don't want them anyway. But any effort to increase their scarcity only fuels demand among those who believe they need them precisely because "the government" wants to take them away.
>
>That's already being noticed: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/18/gun-sales-surge-after-connecticut-massacre/

Santa hit the gun shows and stores over the last couple of weeks. At least for our home he did.


>
>>My point is exactly that like most utopian "solutions" this is rhetoric, not policy. Making people responsible for their behavior is practical - if not popular. But trying top-down decrees regulating what people can do or have where it does not impinge on someone else's rights doesn't work and never has.
>
>Emphasis mine. That's one of the major criteria that define adult behaviour. My question is, how do you "make" someone an adult? If they haven't already achieved "adulthood" by a certain age, will it ever happen? Or is it like trying to treat psychopathy or sociopathy?
>
>On second reading, maybe you meant that people should be made to suffer penalties for indulging in irresponsible behaviour. I agree that's reasonably practical in most cases. But it's a bit of a thorny issue in cases like Sandy Hook, where the perp kills himself.