In the US gun sales hit new record on 2013.

And in your eyes limiting someone's freedom is a good solution? That is a serious question.

No one has suggested doing nothing. We have certainly suggested doing nothing that infringes on our rights.

All of this arguing boils down to "what if" scenarios on both sides which get nowhere.

Fact is gun related homicides have dropped in the past 20 years as well as the overall violent crime rate. There is no need to act upon something that's not a problem on the larger picture. Instead of focusing on what gun the person used to kill a bunch of innocent people in a public building, we need to be focusing on WHY the person was in the building with the gun and intent to kill in the first place.

What a lot of these killers don't have is respect for human life. Many also don't have respect for firearms. Those who have firearm related accidents clearly do not have respect for firearms and their potential for damage. These are things we can focus on and would probably have a much greater impact in the quality of life of the United States overall than a ban on sale or increased background checks that don't really tell us anything and waste everybody's time (how many mass shooters in the past 20 years have had a prior criminal record? very few).

We plaster schools and public spaces about the dangers of drunk driving, smoking, and hard drugs, but it's a lot less common we teach the danger of firearms and their responsible use. Most places have a zero tolerance for that kind of information which does more harm than good in the long run, just like all zero tolerance policies (an issue for another debate). We have nearly 400 million firearms in this country, there is no ignoring the fact that they are a part of American life if you agree with it or not. It's stupid to shy away from educating people about their uses, their dangers, and the proper care and responsibility one should have around firearms.

Furthermore we as a society have a problem with individuals becoming detached from the rest of us which results in a devaluing of human life and thus makes them more prone to violent outbursts and harming other people. It's not a good combination and there's going to be dozens of different factors.

Focusing on "what if" scenarios and trying to simplify the issue doesn't help.

Well, we could try to improve the quality and/or availability of mental health services and counseling services.

That sounds like something productive, right?

Yes.

Of course. That would have far greater effects on quality of life in the US than just reducing gun violence. We could potentially see a lot less suicides, less depression, less violent crimes in general, and just better overall quality of life which would be great for all.

What's difficult about mental health services is that it's difficult to define what's a mental illness that can get treated and that people need to voluntarily go and seek the help. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Most mentally disturbed people don't think they have anything wrong with them. Simply increasing the amount of free care wouldn't have the desired effects. We would need to educate people on the warning signs of various mental health problems that we deem and illness of the mind that makes a person unfit for the standards we set for society. We would need to implement the ability to get people the help who need it without the person in questions consent, and that raises a lot of ethical and political issues.

What we also have in this nation is a great disparity of culture. Entire groups of people have devalued education and self improvement. Other peoples have made things like seeing a psychiatrist taboo and something you don't want to do out of fear of being judged by your peers. You can't just throw down some blanket policies on a federal level and expect them to have a noticeable effect. We need to slowly change the way our nation perceives these various issues and hopefully dismantle the stigmas that society has created.

It's such a difficult thing to do I don't even bother to come up with solutions. Rather I just recognize the problem and hope that a collective group of more intelligent people than myself can take a serious look at the problem and come up with some way to address the issues.

Just going to address those two things:

Depressingly enough, it's a much more complicated and arduous situation than you think. If you ask any seasoned social worker, looking after the severely, but non-committed mentally ill (those with paranoid schizophrenia, dimensia with violent episodes, etc.) is guaranteed to be an incredibly draining process that, quite frankly, has so much danger attached to it (having to walk into a paranoid schizophrenic's house with absolutely no means of self-defense to see if they took the medicine that would make them stop carving illegible symbols into their body, for one) that being able to realistically cover such ground becomes nigh impossible.

Also, note that these people are non-committed, which means that, to some degree, medicine they take has been deemed effective enough to make them functional enough to live a fairly independent life. However, if you ask a social worker about what the biggest challenge is, chances are they'll tell you it's having them regularly take medication. It's not because they despise it (though there are rare cases where that's the main squeeze); rather, it's because they feel they don't need it when they're in that state of normalcy. This means regular monitoring, networking between healthcare professionals, social workers, and various emergency services (police being a common player in this network). Unfortunately, there are sections of the country where social workers are being paid less or having their wages freeze because of either lack of funding or local politics, so social workers, who are vital to the aforementioned networking process, are feeling less valued and less motivated to essentially walk right into highly dangerous situations unprotected.

Of course, all of this is made moot when, like you said, don't have the means to identify the problem. Shunning of the mentally ill within families is commonplace, almost as if having a mentally ill family member automatically makes judging a relative of that person as potentially as crazy rational. However, social engineering is something that would take days for me to write about since the subject is so ridiculously complex when speaking of its components in motion.

I'm from the UK so naturally it's difficult to quite grasp what seems to be quite a cultural difference in the US towards guns.

Violent crime comparisons seem useless to me given the number of variables and the way most crime has dropped dramatically across the developed world. Also i've watched a couple of American talkshows/political news shows on the subject and a lot of the comparison with UK rates are out right misleading. We encompass more crimes under violent crime and it's the same for sex offences so don't be fooled as UK, US comparisons are impossible to make because of this!

All i do know is we've barely had any mass murders, there's probably one in my living memory and it seems similar to the US one in a mentally ill individual getting hands on a gun. I'm not quite sure the number for the US but it seems to be ranging from 10 to 20+ for 2013 alone so there's certainly something wrong there.

I'm not sure we do too much differently in a mental health sense here. We do have free healthcare so that could be an area that aides us? I'm not 100% sure how we compare in this area but i believe we're still lagging behind other areas in Europe that seems more progressive. It's only really been in the last year or two that some advertising campaigns around mental health have started up and as politicians and the media are highlighting it as an area for improvement and one of the county's biggest problems in the future. But even then the biggest focus is with the elderly and dementia and Alzheimer's and such.

So as far as mass shootings go i can't see a reason to have such problems besides some sort of aspect to the US gun culture be it the availability of guns or the attitude. I don't think it's as easy as saying it's a mental health issue, we still have mentally ill people who can take up another type of weapon be it a homemade explosive, knives etc yet i can't ever recall having such a problem in terms of mass killings so i think bans or controls there can make a difference.

Personally though i don't get why some put such focus on gun ownership for protection. I see it as the final step in defence and that prevention is usually the best bet yet it is never focused on. Not making yourself or your home a target for robbery is rarely taken seriously, basic things like a reasonably sized hedge around the house protects privacy and makes entry difficult, closing windows when leaving the house, motion sensing lights (this one scared a burglar off from my neighbours house once), house alarm, either own a dog or have one of those beware of the dog signs, don't leave mail in the door etc...

No sir, I said there are 88 million gun OWNERS, not 88 million guns. The amount of guns is irrelevant, if I own 20 guns I cannot possibly use more than two of them at the same time.

The problem with your thinking is you believe guns are causing the deaths. Humans are causing the deaths, guns are merely a tool. Suicide bombers take out dozens of people weekly in other areas of the world, they NEVER use guns. There will always be a human with the will to kill, and if you take one method away they will simply find another.

We should take every PRACTICAL measure we can to ensure guns stay out of the hands of people who should not have them. People with a criminal past, specific psych issues, etc. The problem here is this is not the approach the gun control fanatics take, which is why they get so much pushback. If you would simply keep it limited to keeping guns out of the hands of bad guys and leave us alone we would stand beside you instead of in front of you. Most of us would anyway, I cannot speak for all.

Not really unexpected when the average american seems to hold Guns, Country and God as their prime core values, in that order.

Maybe Country and God swap places once in awhile however.

Sure.

It has been pretty awful.

I can't find ammo that's not price gouge, and it's not even like I want 45acp, or 9mm.

I just want some 22lr to shoot some cans, but all these stupid hippies keep buying it all trying to triple the price on gunbroker.

Don't want to create a new thread. Here is something that is on Cracked's frontpage today. http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-gun-lovers-haters-can-agree-on_p2/

I think there would be less bickering if gun owners simply say guns are their hobby instead of using the self-defence argument because you can't really argue against the former. I believe most guns owners are more hobbyists than crime fighters anyway.

Defending yourself isn't fighting crime.

Most CCW holders aren't going to initiate a criminal as they have to be commiting a felony for you to walk away without any legal repercussions (most southern states).

I definitely don't own my rifles for self defense. If I lived in a bigger area I would definitely own a handgun for defense, but probably never conceal and carry because I'm not paranoid and I have no interest in becoming the hero.

Though some people do end up using their CCW for defense. Here's a prime example that just happened http://www.kgw.com/news/4-injured-in-overnight-SE-Portland-strip-club-shooting--239825561.html. Guy saved a strip club full of people from a shooter, nobody died. It does happen, but it's not that common because not a lot of people carry.