To start off, illegal drugs are illegal but in America, over 22 million people take illegal drugs.
Illegal drugs have been banned and the government spends over 200 billion dollars a year on just enforcing the ban (then there is the cost of housing the people in cages who they arrest at a cost of around 100,000 dollars a year per prisoner)
The war on drugs has been going on since the early 1970's and today we still have 22 million people using them.
In the 1920's alcohol was banned, and that ban gave rise to gangsters and did nothing to stop alcohol use, instead it lead to mass killings of innocent people who happened to get in the crossfire of rival gangs fighting over turf to sell alcohol.
Banning guns will not work. While it will make it a little harder for criminals to get guns, it will make it impossible for law abiding people to get them. That will only increase crime as it will lower the opportunity cost of doing a crime since they are no longer weighing the possibility of losing their life as much.
Not many things deter a criminal like knowing that their potential victims are able to defend them self.
Look at every single one of these mass murders, they have all taken place in a gun free zone. If you plan to kill a bunch of people, you will be most successful at completing the goal if you can ensure that you wont be stopped or killed before reaching the goal and the best location for that are gun free zones because you can be sure that the law abiding citizens will follow that sign and possibly believe that the sign will protect them.
I would love for all of the guns to disappear as while it wont stop crazy people, it will make it much harder for them to kill people (guns are the most efficient killing tools)
Currently the fact is that even if the government were to take the major action of banning all guns, it would not stop criminals from getting guns. (did you know that cocaine, heroin and many other drugs in this class are illegal and banned by the government, and they have been banned for many decades? With that understanding in mind, why is it that there are at least 3 people that I know of in my neighborhood alone that sell the stuff? Why do many statistics show over 22 million Americans taking illegal drugs?
A signed document does not have magical powers, just because someone makes a law banning something does not make it magically disappear.
furthermore when you make an entire country a gun free zone (eg the UK), you get the highest violent crime rate on the planet.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.htmlPS there has never been a single report or statistic showing reduced violence in gun free zones, there are only cases of criminals overwhelmingly choosing gun free zones for their crimes and many interviewed criminals will use the reasoning of the victims not being able to defend them self.
if you cant get the weapons out of the hands of the criminals then all stronger laws will do will shift the balance of weapons further into the hands of the criminals .
The solution to reducing these crimes is simple, just get rid of the gun free zone status, that way criminals will lose the guarantee that their victims will not be able to defend them self and thus discourage crime in those locations.
PS in the theater shooting, there were at least 5 closer theaters and a bunch others further away, the only unique thing about all of the nearby theater that the killer chose, was that the theater he picked was a gun free zone while the others were not.
(I am not mandating that people get guns, I just want people who legally have them and have proven them self through education and training to be allowed to have their guns with them)
If you plan to break the law dealing with murder, a piddly gun free zone law will not stop you.
PS less than 1/10th of 1% of registered gun owners, use their guns to commit crimes
Also no gun control law will reduce guns more than outright banning them, but even then it will not stop them like I have mentioned before, it did not work with drugs (even with the trillion dollar drug war), it has not worked in countries where guns are banned, and at most it will make it harder for criminals to get a gun, but impossible for law abiding citizens to get a gun.
Furthermore, any ban that reduces law abiding citizens abilities to have a weapon but not the criminals to the same extent will increase crime.
if the criminal cant for any reason get a gun, they would get a knife (eg the school stabbing in china)
and no one stopped that person.
The hijacked planes on 9/11 were hijacked by 1 or 2 people with knives. the TSA did not allow anyone to have weapons so when 2 criminals managed to sneak a weapon onboard, the balance of power shifted in their favor and they managed to do what they wanted without worrying about hundreds of other people stopping them.
Getting rid of guns even if it were possible will not magically prevent these horrible outcomes, if you ban all weapons then a criminal with any weapon that gives him or her a more offensive power will be able to commit crimes without worrying about being stopped.
(thats why many people call guns the great equalizer. Guns exist and you cant undo that so the most you can do is allow law abiding people to level the field in relation to criminals with those weapons.
If guns had not been invented yet, you would see these situations and cries for knife control flooding the news.
Even the UK one of the strictest forms of gun control (the banned them all, and furthermore their landmass is an island where they have more control over what comes in and out), they are having a hard time dealing with gun crime, and unlike the US, in the UK, the guns are mainly in the hands of various gangs.
eg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html