If there was any evidence, whatsoever, that people were using weapons to keep the peace, rather than to kill each other, then you might have the beginnings of a point.

Asking why we don’t protest about a different issue is not a valid criticism of this campaign. And in any case, you picked an example that is particularly relevant: The mining you refer to takes place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (not Uganda) and the tens of thousands of girls & women who are raped there, are raped at gunpoint.

So I guess there’s another answer to your question “what is wrong with arms trade”: Guns are tools of rape.

Fact: The world is a nasty, dangerous place.

The world is all the more dangerous for having 600 million guns in it.

Fact: Guns equalize the disparities caused by the previous facts.

When the security forces of Bahrain (one of H&K’s customers) recently opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, it was not to “equalize the disparities” – it was to kill and oppress.

Your argument would require every man, woman and child to be armed with a gun, which is quite literally crazy, and would make the world a much more dangerous place.

Fact: By arguing for the banning of guns, you are stating that people don’t have the right do fight on an equal level against others who have a advantage in size, etc. over them.

Fact: Putting the word “fact” in front of your wildly misinformed opinions does not magically transform them into the truth.

In essence, the “ban all guns” line is asserting that 100lb women have the right to fistfight 250lb rapists.

No it isn’t. Guns facilitate far more rapes than they prevent. Tens of thousands of women are raped at gunpoint in conflict and post-conflict situations, such the wars in the Balkans and DR Congo.

So you have a problem with H&K providing jobs in your community? I’m sure those employed as well as the families they are feeding are thankful for those paychecks.

We hope, and predict, that over the next decade, the people’s republic will continue to protest and march againist these superpowers, their arms dealerships and interventions, and will rise up.

We can only wish for a new age of peace.

Thank you for your information, I will continue to use your website to help my research into corruption.

You are campaigning for a world without guns – is that really what you want?

Er… Is that a trick question?

Your freedom of speech is protected by guns.

No it isn’t. The biggest threat to my freedom of speech is the government, and they’re the one with all the guns.

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

By “rough men” do you mean the armed forces? Like the British soldiers who tortured Baha Moussa to death? Like the guards at Abu Ghraib? When those rough men do their violence, it is not on my behalf, and it does not help me to sleep peaceably.

Humanity is not yet sufficiently evolved to not consider violence a suitable response to a conflict of interest.

If humanity is not yet sufficiently evolved, don’t you think it’s a bit irresponsible to arm them with hi-tech weapons systems?

…the threat of an equally violent response can, in many cases, avoid violence.

The availability of weapons can, in many cases, facilitate violence.

I don’t like nuclear weapons, but I cannot deny that it is almost certainly thanks to their existence that the cold war remained cold…

It is almost certainly thanks to their existence that the Cold War nearly escalated to a nuclear war (cf Cuban Missile Crisis).