In reply to pasbury:
> Unfortunately the (automatic rifle wielding) cat has been out of the bag for so long now that the original intent is meaningless; even if they manage to re-interpret it in law they'll have civil war on their hands if they try to enforce it.
For me, this is the elephant in the room. We all look back at the horrors of Columbine, Sandy Hook, and now, Vegas, and are revolted by the ease with which weapons developed for the battlefield, can be so easily obtained and used in a civilian capacity.
But we shouldn't look back for the real horror; like the mobile phone industry, the good capitalists involved in personal armaments are keen to innovate in pursuit of market share; to develop existing markets and capture new ones. So like the mobile phone manufactrurers, we see technological innovation at work in the world of small-arms manufacturing, and from that we can conclude that personal weapons will become cheaper, easier to use, more powerful, quieter (there is currently a bill aimed at legalizing 'suppressors' and silencers), faster loading, more easily concealed, more lethal, more deadly.
My conclusion being that, given the current political trajetory of the US, the biggest gun-horrors actually lie ahead of it as a nation.