shouldn't they be prohibited from driving as well?
There have been times (usually after watching someone drive the wrong way round a roundabout or
back up a slip road) that I could agree with that
But instead, we just introduce penalty points on licences, the creation of a traffic corps in the gardai, and lots and lots of roadblocks, mandatory third-party insurance and so on. Plus driving licences, driving tests, road taxes... are you
sure firearms and cars should be treated the same way?
Not trying to jump up on ya but your "children" statistics only get significant, especially controlling for societal and economic issues, at the teenage years. In a country where the legal age for drinking is what, 18 I'm guessing?
Legal age is 18 here, yes, and we do have a fairly tolerant attitude to underage drinkers - so long as they're supervised, many kids are allowed to drink by their parents. France is more liberal, but we're pretty lax about it so long as it's not totally out of hand. The problem is really the violence that comes out of heavy drinking (you wouldn't walk down the main street in Dublin at closing time not so long ago - one minute you'd be walking along, the next, picking bits of someone's ninth pint glass out of the side of your head). And there, it's not the kids, it's the 18-24 age bracket. It's getting better, and it's not the only problem, but it's still a problem.
Er, not to rag, but six pints of guinness here and six glasses of beer in the US are rather different amounts of alcohol...
In any case, if the cultural concern is alcohol-fueled violence, then treat the alcohol problem, not the weapon end. The cause, not a minor symptom.
Quite correct - but you if you're fighting a fire, you don't pause to throw petrol on it!
The Republic had the political duty to close its borders to illegal export and Britain had the responsibility to protect the North's borders from infiltration of arms.
The duty yes, but not necessarily the ability. Stopping
every car driving from the south to the north - well, imagine trying to enforce full border crontrol between Canada and the US! Quite a lot of stuff got stopped - but not everything.