After the recent tragic shooting, it's impossible to get away from the gun control debate. Should we push harsher restrictions to stop this happening again or are we politicizing a tragedy for our own means, not realizing that we are addressing the wrong problem?
Take a look at this trip down memory lane...following a tragic school shooting in 1996 the UK banned many guns, including handguns, in hopes of stopping it from happening again. No school shootings have happened, but the gun crime rate actually rose by staggering numbers within the next four years...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1334043/Gun-crimes-soaring-despite-ban-brought-in-following-Dunblane.html
(yes the article is dated...meant to show the immediate effect of the law. Currently looking for more updated numbers)
I'm not saying our culture doesn't have a gun problem or that everyone having guns all the time is a good idea...I don't have a gun, never hunted, and don't particularly like them myself...but I don't think banning them will stop bad/confused people from doing bad things. There's far more to the problem than having guns and failing to address those things results in simply pushing a political agenda that benefits your own POV for your own reasons.
If you want to ban guns because you don't like them and simply don't want them around...OK, I can accept that. But if you want to ban guns so that bad things don't happen with them, I think we need to make sure that that is the best solution, and in my opinion, there's far more research and discussion to be done before any huge decisions are made.
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