In a video released today Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn encourages terrorists to use American gun shows to arm themselves for potential Mumbai-style attacks.  Gadahn's video laid out a new tactic for Al Qaeda to continue their murderous terrorist agenda:

America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?

At gun shows buyers can purchase guns from private sellers without passing a background check. An investigation by the City of New York showed that even buyers that identified themselves as people who "probably couldn't pass a background check" were able to purchase guns at gun shows.  The investigation also showed the wide variety of guns available at gun shows.

In addition, people on terrorist watch lists are not forbidden from purchasing guns and many have done just that. Gadahn's instructions come in the wake of Associated Press reporting that showed that more than 200 people with suspected terrorist ties bought guns legally in the United States last year. Following the AP report Representative Mike Quigley introduced an amendment to the Patriot Act that would give the Attorney General the authority to block gun sales to individuals on terror watch lists. The amendment was voted down.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201106030034

I have discussed how cops in Tennessee and other states take the guns confiscated in bank robberies and cop killings and school mishaps and sell them back to the public.http://criminal.lawyers.com/Criminal-Law-Basics/Your-Local-Police-May-Be-Selling-Confiscated-Guns.html

I have discussed the problems concerning guns in our schools. I mean we have five-year-olds making 'boom-booms' in kindergarten for chrissakes! http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/kindergarten-massacre-9903

Thirty thousand dead a year from gunfire (10,000 homicides from gun play) and people like Nugent and the NRA and all the other gunmongers say that our problem is liberal judges letting mean felons out of prison early just for fun!

http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/more-childish-gunplay-10488

Even I have become bored with this subject.

But here we have al Qaeda advertising our gun shows!

Who might the Right blame for this advertisement?

Our Department of Immigration?

Muslim mosques established on Ground Zero?

Our Muslim terrorist secular President?

Abortion clinics?

European socialism?

Obamacare? 

Take a look at how Canada is handling this issue!

Meanwhile, Europe has 1/3 of the weapons per one million people that America allows. In some European countries that ratio is 1: 100! And they are hurting from gun fire about a third as much as we are!

Under the new rules, hammered out in 18 months of negotiations between the European Parliament, national governments and gun advocates, individuals age 18 and over will be able to buy and own a firearm, provided they are not deemed a threat to public safety. Individuals under 18 will only be able to obtain a gun for hunting or target shooting under the supervision of a licensed adult.

To plug holes in the current system, in which the registration of guns is not consistent across the 27-member bloc, each member state will be obliged to set up a computerized database of firearms, including details about their model, caliber, serial number and the names and addresses of both the seller and the buyer. The data must be kept by authorities for at least 20 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/europe/29iht-29union.4.8530991.html

Now the right will use anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that Europe has the same problem we do here in America as far as gun fire. It is an easy thing to do.

Europeans will go postal just as Americans go postal from time to time.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/06/10/john-lott-america-gun-ban-murders-multiple-victim-public-shootings-europe/

There are reporting problems with regard to mishaps involving guns; in this country as well as in any other country. And I have difficulty gleaning up to date information concerning just gun deaths in this country and abroad as I screw around in Google.

For instance, I found this great PDF file with tons of info including a great chart; but most of its contents relate to the 1990's.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/2/214.full.pdf

A more recent study kind of caught me off guard. The Swiss of all people have the biggest problems with guns. As in many countries, when someone enters the military they are issued firearms and they are allowed to take them home following service to their country.

Well the Swiss have more guns per 100,000 citizens than other European nations but that ratio is much less than what you find in the U.S.

As I stated above, there are strange flukes in the data. For instance you will find that in England there are a lot of robberies with pretend guns.

And there are these air pistols (which I assume relate to a more dangerous type of BB gun) that are driving a lot of folks nuts.

Anyway I found a good little article here:

According to a 25-nation survey by the International Action Network on Small Arms, a British-based organization against gun violence, Switzerland's total number of gun deaths, including accidents, in 2005 was 6.2 per 100,000 citizens, which was second only to the U.S. rate of 9.42 per 100,000. Switzerland's rate of gun deaths was more than double that of 18 of the countries surveyed, including neighbors Germany and Italy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/

And here is a link to proposed gun legislation in the European Union.

We can just opine that there are cultural issues at work here; that America keeps quite a large standing army (official as well as commercial) since it has decided to police the world in order to cover the asses of the international corporations. While European nations do not go into this type of enterprise so much.

We might further opine that this nation had a great Civil War; permanently dividing this country into two parts.

We might opine that America is the land of the cowboy; the six gun shooting nation of the Earps and the James and the Youngers....

We might even opine that our version of Freedom demands gun ownership!

But Europe has its own massive history of bloodshed over the millennia--especially over the last two centuries and Europe has tremendous cultural diversity.

The bloodshed experienced in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century makes our Civil War look like a shoot out between the Hatfields and the McCoys! 100 million dead compared to 650,000 dead.

Which is why I have become so in awe of this European Union.

Well the good ole USA has cultural diversity but nothing like Europe in my humble opinion. How the Brits and the French agree on anything astounds me; but Germany and the member nations of the old Austro-Hungarian_Empire?

So Europe is attempting to institute some sort of homogeneity with regard to passing legislation related to registration of firearms and the banning of rockets and machine guns and such.

But you know, there are studies and there are opinions regarding those studies (if gangs did not have guns they would kill each other with knives—which they do anyway) and there are charts and graphs and transcripts of testimony...

But I know one thing for sure!

Al Qaeda knows America made or not; the place to go for weapons IS RIGHT HERE!