The Persistence of Weaponry(Memory) – Poll, please assist

So, after listening today to an interview and debate on Midmorning on MPR, I came to an interesting point. The interview was with a man whose business sold, through online means, the guns involved in both the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings. He has started a forum at Gundebate.com asking people to write in with their suggestions as to how to deal with the current situation at hand. My question, then, became “Who believes what when it comes to guns, shootings, and the second amendment.”

Now I want to do this as objectively as I can. I personally believe in heavy gun control, and tend to recite the second amendment as “the right to arm bears.” But aside from that, and maybe including it, I want to know about demographics and their opinions on weapons sales. Here’s what I’m asking. If I can get people to come to this site and post in the comments section about their opinions I can then compile the data and see what it says. I plan to split demographics(age groups) thusly – Under 18, 18-25, 26-35, 36-45, and 45+. The reason I’ve stuck the last group of ages into such a large group is due to the steadily decreasing numbers of people who use the internet based on age.

Just post your age and answer this question: “Should handguns, pistols, and all other non-hunting guns be available for purchase to the average citizen?” If I get a good enough response, maybe we’ll see some interesting data. Note that this is very lacking in the scientific area since we are likely not to see an even distribution of demographics. Thanks all.

Edit, 23 March 2008, 1316 hours: Alright, here’s the thing. I’m not going to get the number of responses I need for data, so I’m throwing this to the back burner. The information I sort of got tells me that there really is no age basis on the gun debate, and I truly did not expect one. In response to a couple of the posts I received: I made no allusion to the second amendment having any relationship to hunting. The second amendment’s purpose was to allow citizens of the newly forming United States to own guns for use in local militia for defense of the country. I maintain that this is the intended design of this amendment and that it in no way allows people to keep weapons for anything other than military service or hunting purposes. So if by chance you’d like to keep your guns, sign up for the army and take them to Iraq. I make no apologies for my viewpoints and will gladly wax philosophic on the essence of the Bill of Rights.

Also, I realize that I made my own views available from the beginning of this poll. I know that poll taking is intended to be objective but I was only taking an informal poll. Believe me that in my science background I am more than aware of what is involved in the accruing of data. I’ve done my fair share of experimenting.