NoxNoctum: I actually agree with some of what the guy was saying that modern culture is being as a whole being made less empathetic by a lot of factors.
That said it's silly to try to put the blame on one particular thing when the problem is human nature.
The problem is that those kind of killings seem to only happen in the US.
So either you think that Americans are by nature a lot more violent than Europeans or you point out the main difference between the US and Western Europe when it comes to violence, which is the much easier availability of guns.
The problem with guns is that they make make it way too easy to kill someone.
Let's take an example. Someone made you really angry, and you feel very much like killing him.
If you don't have a gun available, you'll likely grab a knife. With a knife, you actually have to catch the other person and then manage to stab them. It's fairly hard to kill with a knife actually, if you don't know what you're doing.
If you do have a gun, you can just shoot the other person. You might miss, or you might just injure them. Or you might kill them. Either way, it'll likely happen much faster than with a knife, meaning there is less chance the other person could talk you down or you might come to your senses.
It's much more likely that you'll kill one person, let alone several, with a gun than with any other weapon available to normal people.
NoxNoctum: The reason is because it's supposed to be the last line of defense against tyranny. One of the last straws before the Revolutionary war was when the Brits tried to disarm the colonists.
So US citizens are entitled to own assault rifles etc. because that's what the government has. The government can't just run roughshod over the populace as easily if many of them are armed. It's basically a way of ensuring that government is really by the "consent of the governed".
Honestly I think a lot of Europeans might have a problem understanding this because frankly a lot of European governments even very recently have been despotic. (even Spain was under Franco only a few decades ago) I'm also not sure if Europe has a libertarian streak in the same way that the US does (which came out big time with Ron Paul). (note: I am not talking about the people who preach small government but want to legislate morality and pour billions into "defense" while running a massive empire)
That being said, I am personally a total pacifist, so I would never participate in any sort of violence even in self defense and I don't condone it either even if the government became despotic (which it is showing signs of doing with the Patriot act, NDAA etc.). But I understand the position of people who are die hard 2nd amendment proponents.
I'm a historian, so I'm quite aware of the history issues. But that was 200 years ago. Times change.
The whole militia argument makes no sense nowadays, simply because even if people get assault rifle, there's no way they can resist a tank battalion, or air strikes.
It made sense 200 years ago, because the army had weapons only a little better than normal people could get. Nowadays, either you allow private citizens to get planes, tanks and other advanced weaponry (which no one wants to do, because it's way too dangerous) or the idea of the citizen militias resisting the army is just so much junk.
NoxNoctum: Coming at it from a different angle, I think gun control is also misguided simply because it won't do anything to stop gun violence. Instead, it will create a massive black market.
If people really want to reduce the amount of gun violence they should call for the end of the war on drugs. That would drastically reduce the amount of gun related crimes while simultaneously possibly making people feel more secure and feel less need for guns for self defense.
Americans like guns. Americans also liked alcohol, which is why the prohibition failed miserably. It would be a similar situation if guns were outlawed. I shudder to think of the amount of deaths that would result of drug cartels gaining control of such a gigantic new slab of "market share".
In conclusion, change culture, don't try to change the laws.
BTW, look at Switzerland. Most of the male populace own assault rifles as part of their country's system of defense, (or even more deadly stuff, like AT weapons etc.), yet their murder rate is much lower. Again, it is a problem of culture, not of laws.
Most normal people have an innate respect of the law, and fear the consequences of breaking it. Unless acquiring a black-market gun were as easy as pirating games or finding illegal alcohol during the Prohibition (and it wouldn't be except in some states like Texas), most people won't do it.
Intelligent gun control laws could help, although they wouldn't be enough to solve the problem. I agree that to do so, you'd need to change Americans' views on guns, to make them socially unacceptable as in Europe. But that'll take a long time, and some gun control laws similar to those In Switzerland can help in the meantime.
And actually, the Swiss don't have much trouble because those weapons are tightly controlled, and their owners have to go through training.
