Japan had nowhere near the gun culture or level of gun ownership the US has. There are enough unregistered guns in the US to supply the criminal population for decades.

Most criminals steal or buy there guns on the black market. What do you think is going to happen to the hundreds of millions of guns sitting in people's basements when guns are banned?

Also if they passed the exact same law in the US, the result would be violence and insurgency. There are thousands of heavily armed people sitting around waiting for the day the government bans firearms.

> Peopple have figured out how to do this.

'This' being 'taking firearms away from people willing to obey the laws in the first place'.

What's the problem with using that logic to take firearms away from criminals?

Because by definition, criminals do not obey the law. If arms were taken out of circulation, there would be none to obtain except via smuggling --which is time consuming, requires connections, is costly, etc. It would certainly require advanced planning to carry out. The criminal could not just go down to Sears and buy one or down to the seedy area of town and then do a stick up later in the day.

Except that soon you'll be able to just print the guns out at home.

People could --but to what degree of success? A gunsmith, yes, but any yobbo at home? They might fire once, they might explode.

That's why I'm putting it more like 20 years out. Eventually there will be printing technology that will provide the tolerances required for a complete gun that doesn't blow up in your face.

And the drugs - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/21/chemputer-that...

And some spare organs in case of accidents involving the guns and the drugs - http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engine...

And nice little chocolate things - http://www.chocedge.com/

And a new home after you destroy your existing one with the guns after binging out on all the drugs and chocolate - http://www.contourcrafting.org/

This is a very exciting future indeed. There hasn't been something like this since the home computing revolution. It's the 1970s again, and we're still at the Homebrew Computer Club stage.

Tell me about it. I went and bought a reprap. I now have a 3d printer on my desk that's priced well under a grand, that is cheap as hell to run and that is designed from the outset for making replacement and upgraded components for itself. - http://www.reprap.org

Why more people haven't bought one already is more of a mystery to me.