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According to this: https://blockchain.info/de/cha...
we have up to 350k transactions per day. (This has similar numbers: https://www.quandl.com/data/BC...)

So we "waste" 350,000 weeks of american households energy, per day.

Where on the planet are the power plants supporting that?

A pistol is not the same thing as a rifle. A semi auto is not the same as a bolt action.

Nowhere did I say that. A semiautomatic pistol is surely not the same thing as a rifle, but it has the same "fire as fast as you pull the trigger" mechanism, which is one of the two main objections people raise to "assault rifles." The second one is "high capacity magazines," and this is simply not that big a deal for somebody who's got a shred of practice. You can swap out a magazine on the move in about 2 seconds. You get slightly less firing time with a pistol than a rifle because you have to change magazines more frequently, but that is NOT the major limiting factor if you're trying to maximize damage.

That's why you don't see massacres using hunting rifles or low mag pistols.

Yeah, nobody ever killed a bunch of people with a couple handguns. In fact, if you look at the statistics, you'll find that handguns were absolutely involved in nearly all recent mass shootings. And guess what: those semiautomatic pistols are issued by militaries the world over, they have 10-15 round magazines standard, which makes them about half the capacity of the high-capacity 30 round magazines. So every thirty rounds, you get about 2 seconds less shooting time with a pistol than with a rifle. Given the duration of most of these shootings, do you really think that 20 seconds over the course of 20 minutes to 3 hours is going to make much of a difference in body count?

the argument that 'they don't like it because it looks scary' doesn't hold weight against second graders and mall goers and club dancers getting sawn in half by something made specifically to incur horrific fatal wounds to people.

Yes, it does. Plenty of mass shootings have been committed by people using handguns. MOST (somewhere around 80%) of gun violence is committed with handguns. Mass shootings account for somewhere less than 2% of gun fatalities overall.

FBI statistics show 5,562 killings committed by handgun, versus 248 by rifle, versus 262 by shotguns in 2014. Approx 2000 were "unspecified firearm type" -- meaning that even if every single one of those was a rifle, you'd still be looking at more than twice as many handguns used in gun violence as rifles.

Mass killings are scary - but again, if you claim you care about gun violence, rifles are by far the LEAST of your worries in terms of gun violence. Taking steps to limit handgun violence will do far more than taking steps to implement "feel good" legislation about "assault rifles." Focusing on rifles as a major gun violence problem is like worrying that your family photo is hung crooked on the wall while your house is on fire.

First of all hats off to you for making this about guns.

There are many many times more gun deaths than knife deaths in the USA each year So yes, gun deaths are much worse than any other form if only by the numbers.

A criminal without a gun is less likely to kill you, so while still a criminal he is far less of a criminal, criminality is a question of degrees, we've all broken a law at some point. To my mind any crime committed with a weapon of any kind (including non firearms) should be treated as an aggravated crime and punished more harshly. In other countries guns are rarely used in crimes and the death rate is correspondingly much lower

Reducing the number of guns and changing the types of guns in public hands in the USA will make the public safer, just as doing the same has achieved in other countries

All laws affect criminals' behavior in general, evidence shows that they generally try to avoid breaking the law (eg. avoid taking hostages) except for the specific purpose they have in mind because all that does is increase the risk

Go ahead and discuss the points all you like, I feel you missed a few, the arms race between the public and the police for example, that is not helping, or the increased likelihood of dying by a gun if you actually have one, apparently they don't magically make you or your children bulletproof. Or the dishonest representation of this being all or nothing, that people could not keep a shotgun to defend their home or a hunting rifle but give up the gang and paramilitary weapons

Americans constitute 5% of the worlds population, yet we consume 24% of its energy.

Please stop using this bogus comparison to imply that Americans use more than "their share" of the world's energy. The correct comparison is between inputs and outputs. The USA produces nearly 20% of the world's GDP. If your 24% is correct, we have room for improvements in energy efficiency, but we're not nearly the energy gluttons that you're suggesting. The low ratio of population to energy use is largely due to our high productivity.

Maybe so ( I'm doubtful. Given my experiences in interactions with US companies, efficiency isn't the word that jumps to the front...), but how much of your GDP is 'real things' and how much is overvalued ones and zeroes (ie IP) and 'services', which really doesn't require very much energy to produce?

Americans constitute 5% of the worlds population, yet we consume 24% of its energy.

Please stop using this bogus comparison to imply that Americans use more than "their share" of the world's energy. The correct comparison is between inputs and outputs. The USA produces nearly 20% of the world's GDP. If your 24% is correct, we have room for improvements in energy efficiency, but we're not nearly the energy gluttons that you're suggesting. The low ratio of population to energy use is largely due to our high productivity.

Not to burst your bubble regarding places with strict anti gun laws but they don't all have higher crime rates (for violent crimes anyway). Mexico has massive violent crime issues and strict gun control, whereas England has strict gun laws and they have a much lower rate of violent crime. Of interesting note, in Switzerland, where there isn't gun registration, they have a very low rate of violent crime overall. Seems to me that the violence has a lot more to do with other factors than just the legality of firearms. Source: http://www.quandl.com/society/oecd-murder-rates

Indeed. Like homogeneity of society. Switzerland and England are pretty homogeneous population wise. Religion, social mores, etc have evolved over centuries in pretty unbroken consistency.

Pretty much the entire western hemisphere is less than 200 years old (in terms of societal maturity. I'm not counting the early colonial era, as it's about as far removed from pre-revolutionary America as the first pilgrims were from the native Indians - in a societal sense) and is a conglomerate of nations, religions, languages and social mores. That's not to say that the homogeneous societies don't have pockets of radical non-conformity, but they tend to be smaller than the whole segments of dissimilar populaces in the United States.

I would hazard to guess that Mexico, despite 'looking' more homogeneous is about as fractious as we are, though the fragments of society have more in common with each other than most of our segments of society. It would be more interesting to see a correlation study between the homogeneity of nations and the level of violence within its bounds.

I am not an expert on societal differences, but I play one on the Internet (and pay attention to TED talks, read a lot, etc...)

Not to burst your bubble regarding places with strict anti gun laws but they don't all have higher crime rates (for violent crimes anyway). Mexico has massive violent crime issues and strict gun control, whereas England has strict gun laws and they have a much lower rate of violent crime. Of interesting note, in Switzerland, where there isn't gun registration, they have a very low rate of violent crime overall. Seems to me that the violence has a lot more to do with other factors than just the legality of firearms. Source: http://www.quandl.com/society/oecd-murder-rates