Another Mass Shooting

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So guns are more dangerous, easy to use and efficient, but according to you not more dangerous, easy and efficient enough to make a distinction between them and, say, axes, regulate according to that distinction, and expect a drop in the overall murder rate and hope to at least make these kind of atrocities harder to commit?

First off, guns are not easy to use. It takes a lot of practice to shoot them accurately. You might note that most spree killers spend months practicing. Or they were gun nuts to begin with, like the Columbine killers.

Second of all, I already said I support a certain level of gun control. Background checks, waiting period, mental health evaluation.

Thirdly, while it would make them harder to commit, it wouldn't eliminate them. In a world with no guns, evil would still find a way. There is no solution. We live in an imperfect universe. Bad shit happens. It always will.

Fourthly, with advancing technology, it will be impossible to prevent the manufacture of guns. In the next few decades, people will be printing them out. This will probably be illegal, but that will prevent it like laws prevent people from cooking up meth.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

I don't know about that. It seems that in western european countries where most guns are banned, the murder rate hovers around a quarter of that of the USA. What factors other than the prevalence of firepower do you think accounts for that?

Aren't Western European countries better places to live? Like maybe there is less murder because the conditions that push people to murder one another exist to a lesser degree in those nations? Lower social inequality, less pissed off people. Healthier sex lives because of more liberal sexual mores--spree killers overwhelmingly tend to be losers with women.

Guns as the sole factor is simplistic.