RC:
fritz:
SciFrog:

RC I was in Dubai with all my family recently. It is very safe and actually we had a better experience than 5 years ago. It actually felt way safer than Paris (I have never felt safe there) even when going to the souk.

Ironically, despite the "best efforts" of the terrorists in France back in January and last week, the statistical odds of a USA resident being killed by a firearm are many times greater in any year than those of someone being killed in either a "normal" gun-related crime or in a terrorist attack in France in this exceptionally bad year of 2015.

So much for Trump's claim in several speeches in the last couple of days blaming the death toll in Paris on the restricted ownership of guns in France.

Don't forget that many (actually a majority!) of the reported gun related deaths in the US are suicides. Smiley The liberal media in the US and the media in Europe always kind of forgets to mention this "little detail". Smiley

I agree however that owning a personal gun wouldn't have helped during the terror attacks in Paris. Crowds of people, people sitting at tables in a restaurant, it is dark, a private person with a personal gun could have caused even more damage than the terrorists. Whoever has training with guns knows what I am talking about. If not, maybe you have the wrong training. Smiley 

Also, especially in times of terrorism, the concealed carrying of a gun is problematic, even for police officers. I remember how a police officer without uniform got in serious trouble at a public event in Munich because he went there directly from work and forgot that he had his work weapon with him. They almost shot him and now he has been demoted.

I didn't forget it.
The number of homicides by firearm in the USA has already exceeded 11.000 so far in 2015. Adding suicides takes the figure well past 30,000/annum. 
The total number of firearm-related homicides, including shootings by terrorists plus other terrorist killings (explosive devices of suicide bombers) in France in the same period will be fewer than 200. In a more typical recent year (with no terrorist activities), the number of gun-related homicides in France amounted to just 35. 
In view of the huge difference between these figures, only an idiot could argue that widespread gun ownership would save lives. 

A couple of figures at the top of the article linked to here also demonstrate the stupidity of the argument made by Trump and others: 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/05/viral-image/fact-checking-comparison-gun-deaths-and-terrorism-/


--

fritz