I'm okay with violent felons owning guns after they serve their sentence...

[gejohnston]

42. Latin America is mostly middle income,

but that isn't relevant to crime rates.

Lobbying isn't really petitioning in a reasonable way. Lobbying is a "sell to the highest bidder" system of campaign financing. Politicians shouldn't have to be lobbied to represent their constituencies properly...and if we're honest... go spend some time on the open secrets website and see just what percentage of groups lobbying politicians represent the people and what percent represent corporations, foreign nations, and military contractors... for example.

Unions are at the top of the list too. See how that works? I don't buy the bribery argument. Most of the time it is the politicians shaking the rest down.

I am for complete gun prohibition, in the same way a dad takes away a car from his son who keeps wrecking it; prove you can drive and we'll talk about giving you the keys back. I understand that some places can have guns and not have massive gun violence, but that's not America.

Actually, that is most of America, and you just made it clear that you are not a liberal. You might be a progressive, but certainly not a liberal. I have nothing but disdain for the regressive left. We are not children and the State is not daddy.

I'm personally unwilling to just accept 30K dead Americans a year for no good reason.. or even 30K - 10% or 30K - 20%. No American SHOULD be, and if it was say, terrorism killing 30K a year Americans wouldn't be. Why we all just shrug when guns kill as many in 5-6 weeks as died on 9/11 is really unfathomable... well, it would be if you never met any American gun "enthusiasts".

two out of three are suicides. If there were no guns, they would simply be suicide by other means like other 18K suicides. I don't call that a progress.

As for Latin America, is that the goal for America? Rampant poverty, horrible infrastructure? Endemic crime?

No, Chicago and Baltimore is already there. The point is that, to use an analogy of criminologist James Wright in explaining why gun control doesn't work, you prevent malaria by destroying the mosquito's habitat. IOW, you drain the swamp.

I find these sorts of comparisons frankly nonsensical. We're not Costa Rica or Columbia, but if you wanna compare us, did you know that Louisiana has a similar gun violence rate to Costa Rico?

Why do you find them nonsensical? We aren't Iceland, Australia, or Japan either, what's your point? Culturally, we have more in common with those countries than anywhere in Europe. If you use an economic indicator like Human Development Index, Latin America and places like Estonia come relevant.

It's also worse than the gun violence rate in Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Argentina.

If we are talking about Louisiana, NOLA is less than ten percent of the population but accounts for half of the murders. If you are talking murder rates, Mexico has a higher murder rate and the others aren't too far behind. If NOLA were to secede, Louisiana's per capita murder rate would be less than half of what it is now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state

And yet Costa Rica's "healthcare system is ranked higher than that of the United States, despite having a fraction of its GDP" and until recently is had fewer uninsured people per capita than America.

I don't know how that is relevant or the criteria used, but their murder rate is twice ours. Also, abortion is illegal there.

Now about the most dangerous cities list... are you sure again that comparing places like Caracas to say Denver Colorado makes any sense at all? Let's just say that very very few of the laws matter much in some parts of the world, so gun control is more of a notion than an enforced law. Is NYC not able to enforce laws any better than San Pedro Sula? The truth is that gun owners support background checks BECAUSE they think they'll work. Americans generally believe laws are enforceable, because relatively speaking they are IN AMERICA. Not so much in third world and developing countries.

I explained the parallels. Please explain why it doesn't? Let's just say humans and dinosaurs were co existed, same difference.
Actually, anyone that seriously studies the issue doubts background checks work. To begin with, criminals don't go to gun shows or FFLs. Studies starting with the Wright Rossi study in the 1980s showed that. It also showed the Gun Control Act to be ineffective. BTW, background checks have been law for two decades.
http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Considered-Dangerous-New-Second/dp/0202362426/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51FRHakasLL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR214%2C320_&refRID=09XF7HD7HHDCV92QQQGQ

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Gun-Weapons-Violence-America/dp/0202303063

To be perfectly honest, what it sounds like to me is that you are less concerned about how people kill themselves and each other than actually saving lives. IOW, just another culture warrior. Your "daddy and car keys" analogy reminds me of another poster some time ago. That is illiberal and smacks of what Sam Harris calls "the regressive left".
One more thing
review_strongest_research_shows_no_link_between_gun_ownership_rates_and_higher_crime