I'm totally opposed to U.S. gun laws.

There has however been a notable number of similar shootings in other countries like germany, though its nowhere near as high as U.S. So its not just an US problem. One might even argue that it might just be that high in the US because US has a vastly higher population, making it more likely for those indiviual shootings to happen - though there is no denying that lax gun laws are very likely to increase the chance of something like this happening.

Even in those cases from non-US shootings, from my information there has always been legally owned guns in play, I can't really recall many (school) shootings in non-US western countries that where conducted primarly with illegal weaponry, so I think there is a good point in restricting the possesion of guns to combat this problem.

And yet, Chicago has some of the strictest guns laws in the nation with the highest rates of murder and gun crimes in the nation. This isn't a gun issue, it is a people issue. If we abolished gun ownership and somehow managed to confiscate all guns and melt them down, there would be mass stabbings or bombings. If someone is intent on causing this level of harm to others, they will find a way. You cannot legislate away evil, no matter how hard you try.

And yet, Chicago has some of the strictest guns laws in the nation with the highest rates of murder and gun crimes in the nation.

That would be because of the guns that are coming into Chicago are from outside Chicago and also outside Illinois. If the whole state of Illinois had as strict gun laws as Chicago and strict enforcement of those gun laws and it still had the highest gun crime rate, then I'd be more apt to side with your argument.

And yet, Chicago has some of the strictest guns laws in the nation with the highest rates of murder and gun crimes in the nation. This isn't a gun issue, it is a people issue. If we abolished gun ownership and somehow managed to confiscate all guns and melt them down, there would be mass stabbings or bombings. If someone is intent on causing this level of harm to others, they will find a way. You cannot legislate away evil, no matter how hard you try.

Granted, I belive that your numbers are true, but I'm not convinced that this high crime rate necessarily has something to do with the gun laws per se. You are probably right that it is a people problem, but on the other hand I don't see any argument that having less prohibitive gun laws are actually beneficial, like some officials/the "weapon lobby" is suggesting. So you might say that it would be ok to keep gun laws as they are because it doesn't affect anything, which I'm not totally sold on. Its true that if you abolish guns and bombs and knifes people would probably go around slicing each other up with pencils, but AFAIK its a known fact that guns reduce the inhibitions of actually harming someone because it puts a distance between you and your "enemy/target", and also reduces the action to pulling a trigger versus actively going at him stabbing him repeatedly (same could be said for bombs).

Now that said I do not belive that banning/restricting guns is THE solution, especially since with what I belive I've read with an average of 1 weapon per person in the US (including minors statictically), making an outright ban would probably result in half the people just hiding their guns and still having them around. Though, most countries with more restrictive gun laws have much much less problems with those kind of crimes like US. So while you could say there is not necessarily a connection and it is a people/cultural problem, I am convinced that over time, restricting gun laws would help the issue.

I'm totally opposed to U.S. gun laws.

There has however been a notable number of similar shootings in other countries like germany, though its nowhere near as high as U.S. So its not just an US problem. One might even argue that it might just be that high in the US because US has a vastly higher population, making it more likely for those indiviual shootings to happen - though there is no denying that lax gun laws are very likely to increase the chance of something like this happening.

Even in those cases from non-US shootings, from my information there has always been legally owned guns in play, I can't really recall many (school) shootings in non-US western countries that where conducted primarly with illegal weaponry, so I think there is a good point in restricting the possesion of guns to combat this problem.

And yet, Chicago has some of the strictest guns laws in the nation with the highest rates of murder and gun crimes in the nation. This isn't a gun issue, it is a people issue. If we abolished gun ownership and somehow managed to confiscate all guns and melt them down, there would be mass stabbings or bombings. If someone is intent on causing this level of harm to others, they will find a way. You cannot legislate away evil, no matter how hard you try.

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-51444

I strongly believe this is a mental health concern, not a weapon ownership concern.

One major problem is that mental health has a heavy stigma in the US. That needs to end. In real life people suffer emotional and mental traumas just as severe as broken bones (short term) or diabetes (long term). If you see someone with a broken bone, a huge white and red thing sticking through their deformed arm, you immediately take them to a hospital. Someone suffers a similar emotional damage and there is a major question, 'should I ask them about it? should they consider going to a mental health professional?' That needs to stop.

Mental health care needs to be more available. Most health insurance is reluctant to cover it, and those that do usually limit it to a small number of sessions. It should be automatically covered by health care. Someone losing their job, having a family member get ill or die, or other major emotional trauma can be a major thing.

Just like the physical actions, sometimes a person can fall down and are just fine, they stand up and walk away. Other times they take a fall and break a leg or slash up their skin. Similarly, sometimes you can lose a job and be just fine, pick yourself up, and find another job. Other times you have a layoff and it hits you extremely hard.

This is absolutely a mental health issue. Fix mental health care and most of the violence associated with it will quickly fall away.

I strongly believe this is a mental health concern, not a weapon ownership concern.

Unfortunately, these two things are tied together slightly. While yes, someone with poor mental health without access to a gun might fly into a rage and start trying to knife children, they are far less likely to kill people:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_School_stabbing).

While someone with poor mental health and fairly easy access to a gun ends up doing far worse.

You know that gun-related violence and mass shootings in the US are decreasing in frequency, right? Don't let a sensationalist media desperate for attention shape your entire worldview. Hodgman hypothetical scenario does actually exist in some places. The area where I live is approx. 85% owner, and the only incidents of gun violence in the last 15 years was one hunting accident and one shooting of an out of state by another out of stater. If guns were as evil as advertised, I think the numbers would be somewhat higher.

Your comment regarding guns being addictive is a non sequitur. They're just a tool. No more addictive than a garden rake.

I think that such incidents of violence speak more to the character of the people involved, than the nature of guns themselves.

Generally, the areas which have the highest gun ownership rates have the lowest rates of gun violence. Partly, this is demographics - these tend to be rural, very homogeneous areas; very little racial tension, very little gang activity, and a culture of understanding and respecting firearms.

Regarding firearms as just a tool is, I have come to understand, the result of being well-acquainted with them, and the results of firing them, with live ammunition at a something. Without ammunition, a pistol is no more effective than a brick, and a rifle is no more effective than a baseball bat. If you are a hunter, you become intimately aware of the tremendous damage that a fast-moving chunk or chunks of lead can do to living tissue. But if you do not combine the firearm with the ammunition with the person pulling the trigger, it is an inert object. People that don't have this experience are seemingly irrationally fearful of firearms.

They say there are lies, big lies and statistics. I don't say that articles cited here or diagrams are not true. But I say they may not show the whole picture. For example density of population has great effect on crime so comparing #of crimes per 1mil people is useless between say Canada and US.

In my own country similar statistics of number of people killed by drunk drivers are used to enforce more and more restricted law for drivers. Now to the point that you lose driving license for few weeks for any collision (whenever drunk or not) and it is harder and harder to pass exam for driving license. That is good thing, right? Actually not because those who kill on road usually lost their license due to drink-driving long ago, and those who suffer are everyone else. And statistics like "we captured XXX drunk drivers this month" also include people who walked with their bicycle while drunk, because guess what? by the law they were drunk and they led "road vehicle", so if hey fit the description!

..snip..

You do know that The Onion is 100% pure satire, right?

..snip..

You do know that The Onion is 100% pure satire, right?

I checked his link, and despite it being satire, the point it makes is spot on. It's satirizing the "woe is us, there's nothing we can do to stop tragedies" mentality. Every time this happens, the Onion writes an article using the following template:

In the T following a violent rampage in L in which a lone attacker killed X and Y, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded D that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said S resident N, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this guy from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what he really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past Y years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”