A grave tragedy indeed, may the perpetrator suffer for his actions. This however does not change the fact that gun control laws are totally ineffective at preventing such occurrences. Restrictive gun control laws are as ridiculous and draconian as drug prohibition. Neither serves to actually address the underlying issues and simply serves as a political tool to manipulate the masses. If you outlawed guns outright people would simply use explosives instead.

Viper, I understand your logic and how you are thinking. Naturally, if criminals know we have guns, they are less inclined to commit crimes. But that argument has been debunked by research. USA, which allows people to have guns (not in all states) has the HIGHEST number of homocides through the use of guns compared to other countries that don't have guns. 

For example, USA has over 8,000 gun murders per year. Canada has only 200. UK has only 60. Japan has 2 (they had 18 one year which was regarded as insane and such a high number). Now you will tell me that the US has a bigger population than other countries and so naturally it will have more murders. But let us do simple maths. US has approximately 300million people, Canada has about 30 million (I am rounding to make things easier). So the US has 10 times more people. Multiply the gun murders in Canada by 10, that is 200x10 = 2000 murders by guns. That is still a QUARTER of the number of murders in the US. 

The facts are clear, if you allow people to have guns, people will get killed. I mean, look at this guy. No one suspected a thing out of him. He is a graduate student of neurosciences. I saw him hold presentations in class, he looked like a totally normal kid, then BAM. he goes out and slaughters all these people. He didn't think twice whether he would be gunned down or not. Also, accidental killings happen when people have guns. So for instance, apparently the people at the theater that got shot at, over 40% of them went out and bought a gun for protection so that would never happen again. But that is not the right thing to do, because if the situation was repeated but the crowd had a bunch of guns, people would still be dead, A) because the murderer was wearing full anti-ballistic body armor and would not have been killed with the shots fired his way, and B) amidst the smoke grenades, the darkness in the theater, and the chaos and madness going on in there, I guarantee you those innocents with guns would have accidentally shot another innocent bystander as they could not see shit. Probably more people would have died in this alternate gun-toting scenario.

So no. Just because people are allowed to have guns, does not mean that crimes will stop. It has been proven year over year that this is not the case simply by numbers and simple research, and there has been no valid argument to prove that murders would decrease. But many Americans seem to think that the Constitution was written by a God and cannot be altered and has to be followed word by word, or else....! It is crazy to think that! The Constitution was written in the 1700's man!!! What they were going through back then was different to what we are living today. There was no such thing as a full fledged police force back then, people were being invaded by the British back then, guns were simple and can shoot 1 bullet at a time after a lengthy reload process (unlike fully automatic weapons that slice through scores of people now like that low life asshole did in the theater).

Those mass shootings, as far as I know, are typically done by someone with ZERO criminal background. They are the "law abiding citizens" you speak off that go nuts and go on mass murders. Dude, if you lose it, you've fuckin lost it. You are not thinking rationally anymore, you are not thinking "oh my, will they shoot me if i do this?!" no! you are thinking "ok, they have guns, so i gotta shoot them all real fast and make sure they dont have a chance to reataliate!" Also, some of these mass murderes turn the gun on themselves and suicide, so they don't give a fuck about someone in the crowd having a gun.

There is no reason for Americans to turn a blind eye to this and STILL after all the evidence put in front of them deny that aboloshing guns would reduce gun murders. There is no room for ignorance in the 21st century! People need to wisen up, see the truth, and rise! Otherwise, you might be present in the next big shooting if the status quo is not changed.

Funny thread. American people really are hard to understand sometimes.

I am not going to post my opinion about gun control, so both sides can feel adressed with my first sentence.

But what i have to say is: fuck the actor. the intention of his behavior is simply not to rate positive, because he does it after demand. he does it in front of the cameras. if he'd truly care about those people he would try to talk to them outside the spotlight. those people shot down are used for public relations now and that is what i call spineless and media-driven.

I was going to counterpoint a lot of your post but that will lead to a very cluttered and hard to follow debate.

So instead, I'm going to leave a link to a pdf file.  I hope that you'll take a few minutes to read it with an open mind.  It has a lot of answers to the myths of gun crime in the US and the rest of the world and it's all backed up by official sources.  It's 107 pages but you don't hae to read the whole thing.  Check the table of contents and look at the data against what you've claimed in your post.   It might surprise you that the US is branded as the Wild West of old but it's really not.  Not do our lax guns laws lead to great gun crime. 

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf

For the record, I don't own a gun and don't intend to.   I just prefer to know the realities of a situation rather than the generatlities that get thrown around.

I will address the theater situation a little since it is obviously not going to be specifically covered in that pdf file.  Had Holmes not legally obtained the weapons, he would have illegally obtained them.  Assuming that he couldn't buy them legally would have prevented him from committing his attack is foolish.  Nor is it wise to assume he commited the attack solely because he could buy them legally.

I will definitely give that article a read when I get the time. Essentially, you are right. If he couldn't get them legally, he would have gotten his hands on them illegally. But the benefit to that is 1) the difficulty in attaining illegal firearms, and 2) the excessive price you would have to pay for an illegal firearm. Those 2 factors can deter away some would-be criminals. As for the really determined, instead of spending an exorbitant amount of cash on an assault rifle and shotgun (as James Holmes possessed), he may have gone for a handgun. So in essance, perhaps the crime couldn't be stopped, but instead of having 12 deaths and 70 wounded, you'll end up with a few. I mean, it sounds silly (the whole less deaths is better than many), but it is better!

I'll read your article later and see what it says, I am sure there is some interesting stuff in there.

Better yet, as per Chris Rock's stand-up comedy, he says something along the lines of keep your guns laws in place, just raise the price of bullets. If each bullet costs $5,000, then no one will walk into a theater and just spray them all over the place. He said it as a joke many years ago, but it is actually a smart soultion, although there will never be the day when a bullet costs that much, but y'know what I mean.

You do realize that you can make your own bullets right? No offense but your suggestions would prove to be largely inelegant, ineffective and punishing to many law abiding citizens. This is the opposite of what we need to do to address the issue.

Edit: Also, this would be the definition of a big, obtrusive nanny-state government over stepping its bounds.

Hey. I think you are refering to Christian Bale. I don't think he is doing it for attention. I heard he was not sponsored by Warner Bros or anyone to do it, he went on his own accord. He is an activist in some causes, so I can see him doing something like this. Plus, the guy is a world-renowned actor. If he goes to the hospital to check on these people, sooner or later the word will spread and pictures will get taken. It's normal. If you were in his place, I am sure you would go pay your respects as well. And sometimes, fame does not let you do things behind closed doors.

I remember watching that and laughing my ass off.   His jokes were true IF you could find a means to charge $5,000 per bullet but unfortunately that's not something Congress would ever be able to mandate (nor should they since price madates on bullets would lead to a whole debate about what else they could price mandate).

I fully realize it is not an elegant approach. I am just reciting something that was used in stand up comedy. I obviously haven't really looked into it to see the benefits (if any) or problems that can arise. I am not saying it should be done. Just something funny I remembered hearing and thought the subject was appropriate to bring up. 

But I do think that there is no need to be able to purchase fully automatic weapons and shotguns and what not. Civilians use weapons for hunting and self-defense. So why don't they just allow the sale of hand guns and hunting rifles. It won't stop crimes, but it will reduce the casualties.

I don't think you get how easy it is to obtain a weapon illegaly here in the US.  Certainlly he went through all the correct channels to get a hold of his weapons, but in reality it wasn't really any "easier" to get them. The reality in the US is that it simply cost a little more to get illegal weapon and sometimes less depending on were you're buying the weapons and from whome.