Posted by: USS Catalyst
It's always depressing to me to see people saying things like "If we had more guns, this wouldn't have happened". Aware those saying it here may have been sarcastic, but I'm also aware a great many truthfully believe this.
The more guns you have in your country, the more likely they will be used to kill people. The less you have, the fewer deaths will be caused by them. Logic at its absolute simplicity. The average gangster, robber or thug will get their gun in three ways - legally from a gun store, stealing it from someone or buying it on the black market. Guess what happens to those options when civilians no longer have access to guns? The black market starts to dissipate.
In summary, the most effective way to prevent gun-related deaths or crime is to remove them from the equation entirely. Civilians do not need them. If they did, why would other countries such as the UK (which has very strict gun-control laws) have a lower crime rate and significantly lower crime and death rate with guns?
A. It's impractical to remove guns from the U.S. entirely. We have more guns than people here(good luck storming peoples' houses and ripping em from their hands), live right on the border of a country with cartels that regularly smuggle in drugs, plus half the population would lose their -blam!- if the government tried to take away their guns.
B. While more guns wouldn't help situations like this(a.k.a. stupidity), it'd help stop things like mass shootings. How many mass shootings could've been stopped if two or three of the people in the crowd would've been armed and had proper firearm classes? Probably quite a few. Look at Switzerland, almost EVERYONE there has a gun and from what I've hear, it's extremely rare for a shooting to happen, I can only assume it's because the shooter would likely be killed before much damage could be done.