As Samuel Clemens said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

This 3 minute and 47 sec video can't begin to tell the full story.

One reason so many people in the US go to prison is because there are so many recidivists. You don't go to jail in the US unless you have committed a major felony crime or you are a repeat offender.

That's why those in prison for "mere" drug possession actually have a higher arrest rate for violent crimes than those in prison for burglary, robbery or even drug trafficking, according to innumerable studies, including one in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.

We now have more diversionary programs available than ever before. If you commit a theft crime, you get the opportunity to make recompense and/or attend a program. Same with DUI, take a 3 day class or get locked up for 3 days.

Another reason many black men get locked up is because they commit a lot of violent crimes. Violent crimes will almost always get your ass locked up.

I know a fellow in Oregon who used to be the prayer leader for the Seattle Seahaws, a white man, who to my knowledge has never committed a violent crime, yet he is a repeat offender on DUI driving laws. He was recently committed to prison for 3 years.

And as for these 'get tough on crime' laws...the last one passed in Ohio did just the opposite, making repeat felony thefts a misdemeanor. The lawyers in your local legislators know how to title a crime bill...most of which are an effort to save money, not fight crime.

Also, prison guard unions don't send people to prison, judges do.

As for fewer prisoners in China...they just shoot their offenders in the head...saves quite a bit on housing prisoners.

Making crack cocaine a stiffer penalty crime...well, crack is more addictive than cocaine. So why doesn't Al Sharpton get behind the decriminalization of crack cocaine? Probably not enough money in it.

If you want to make a point about people in the US being incarcerated compared to other countries, I'm going to need to see some numbers on the recidivism rates in those countries, not just some surface facts that don't tell the full story.

it's rather like some countries that don't count neonatal deaths unless the child has survived for 30 days...you can't compare that to numbers from countries that count neonatal deaths at 2 hours.

Nope, not over reaching in the least. He attacked while armed, that's brandishing/menacing, and assault with a deadly weapon, he ran at her, said something to her while he did it, then touched her, that's assault and battery, he stole her phone, that's grand theft (phones are expensive) smashed it, that's destruction of private property, kicked it at her, that's battery with an object, and he did it all to hide evidence of his actions, that's felony destruction of evidence.

Yes, if I attack you on public property while armed, smack the phone out of your hand, stomp it, then kick it at you while I'm at work, I should be fired AND prosecuted...while you just say "no"? Please explain your logic (or complete lack thereof).

Wow. You really lack the capacity to understand the point of smashing the phone was to stop her from having evidence of their actions? Please explain, who's going to make him pay for a phone or reprimand him when it's a citizen's word against the lies of all (3) officers there? If there wasn't this second video, they, you, and lantern would still be claiming this didn't happen and is just a lefty making up BS to attack good cops...in fact even with the video you and lantern seem to be trying to say that.

It IS a pattern. You've got 3 officers involved here, and not one good one stopping or reporting them. In fact, in all of these daily (or more often) abusive cop videos you almost always see other officers standing by while their fellow officers commit violent crimes, but you NEVER see one of those by standing officers do their job and STOP the abusive cop....NEVER.
That makes it a probable profession-pervasive pattern.

I am not 'calling' it anything. By legal definition some of his crimes are considered violent crimes and he would have been charged/will be charged as such when he appears before a court.

Robbing a store with a finger in your pocket is the same as robbing it with a gun or piece of metal per the eyes of the law.

Setting fire to an OCCUPIED structure is a violent crime. Committing Arson even on an empty structure can be considered a violent crime depending on who could be hurt if the fire spreads or explosions occur from the contents of the building.

Burglary (also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking) is a crime, the essence of which is illegal entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offence. Usually that offence will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary. Trespassing is typically entering a section of land that has been marked.

Motor vehicle theft (sometimes referred to as grand theft auto by the media and police departments in the US) is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a car. This can happen in many ways, but they all fall under this description.

As far as the gun theft, still falls under the definition of burglary. He stole a weapon and tussled with the store employees to escape. I personally would call it a violent crime, but I don't know for sure if it legally is considered one or if it would be relegated more to shoplifting.

Yeah, I am taking the word of the police that he pointed the gun at them. Maybe I shouldn't because out of the thousands of arrests and incidents that happen daily across the country, we have a few videos that show spurious methods used by a few officers. I mean, I get that right now the public trust in officers is at an all time low for good reason, but given the sheer number of things that this guy already did that day, I have to assume that they might not be lying in this case.

As far as the officer, like I said, maybe he overreacted. But I would rather we risk the death of a clearly severely mentally ill person than read about the 11 year old he shot because he was crazy and had a gun.

In the end, you have the right to see and feel about the incident any way you see fit. You don't have to agree with a single thing I say. But I posted what I posted because I felt that just the video alone is not a clear picture of what was going on in this situation. I merely shared some of the facts that were printed by a major media outlet so that people could have the additional information to make up their minds about the video.

All the information I referred to or copied was from the link to the CNN article in the link the sifter provided above.

Crimes in which violence is the means to an end, such as robbery, are violent crimes. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. He robbed a store, committed arson on an occupied structure, committed breaking and entering upon a private home, stole the car at said home which is GTA, then committed another robbery at the walmart when he took the gun.

CNN stated that the person was also accused of pointing the rifle at the police, firing it in the air, and then later pointing it at himself. The man clearly has some mental issues, but he was a threat to society in the condition he was in. His rights do not trump the rights of his fellow citizens to be protected from his mental illness.

There are lots of ways that this could have been handled differently, but there are also lots of ways this could have went worse. We could be discussing why the police didn't do more before this guy shot an innocent bystander.

From the interview that I saw on CNN of the police chief, lethal force had been authorized if needed. I think this officer saw an opportunity and took it, perhaps over zealously, to end the situation without harm to innocents.

Sorry, the guy had been involved in violent crimes, was armed with a high powered rifle, fired the rifle in the air, pointed it at police, and one of the officers took a chance in taking him down before he hurt himself or others.

People don't understand that they could have simply shot him as soon as he pointed the gun at a cop, with just cause. The fact that the guy lived, and will most likely use this to sue the city and make out like a bandit, is pretty much a win win for him. His lawyer is just blowing it up to make more bank in the lawsuit.

Copy pasta of salient facts, remember, these are in addition to shooting the rifle and pointing it at a cop.

At 6:45 a.m., Valencia robbed a 7-Eleven in Tucson with a metal object in his hand. Authorities said he was dressed only in his underwear. He was charged with theft.

A little more than an hour later, police said, Valencia set a fire at a church for which he was charged with arson of an occupied structure.

Just after that he entered a home and stole a car, police said.

Authorities said he drove to a Walmart where he stole a .30-30 rifle and ammunition. He fled the store with Walmart employees in pursuit.

I think what's happening is that the cops see this stupid criminal behavior day in and day out, they risk their lives, and the lives of innocent people are risked, and nothing really happens to the criminal. I mean, he goes to court, or skips court, or gets a fine, or gets sentenced, then goes to jail perhaps, for a week, or a month, and it's not really punishment. It's 3 squares a day, and basketball, so the cops feel like, hey, let's tune this bastard up a bit, maybe next time he'll think twice before doing something stupid.

Now, I'm just speculating, but I bet there's a good chance this is what happens. For instance, a few weeks ago I got into a vehicle pursuit of a woman who was passing bad checks halfway across the country, we chased her for a good 10 miles at pretty high speeds. She finally gave up, she goes to jail, it's a non-violent crime so the judge gives her a court date and lets her go. This fucking broad was homeless. We'll never see her again. And all those innocent people on the interstate, and the cops chasing her, took chances on physical injury trying to bring her to justice. We brought her to justice but the court just opened the door for her.

You're making the assumption that angry dad has a point to make, and isn't just being angry dad, and that Kevin Smith doesn't have a child in the back seat himself, and that Smith was really driving badly/dangerously.
Dude driving like an asshole? Maybe. We didn't see that happen, and I'm hesitant to take the word of a raving violent asshole.
Dad's driving like an asshole by abandoning his car and child in traffic to scream, then assault someone else, definitely a giant throbbing asshole.
When someone jumps out of their car in traffic and approaches yours, filming them is totally appropriate, and being slightly amused is not abnormal. When someone assaults you by smashing your window into your face, having them arrested and their child removed by CPS is appropriate.

To me this incident is 100% angry dad being the dangerous criminal here. Even if the filmer was driving poorly, the reaction was ridiculously criminal and ACTUAL child abuse (committing a violent crime while driving/abandoning your child is certainly abusive).
Maybe I better get my pipe hitting, blow torch n' pliers using brothers to snatch and teach him a lesson? ;-)

What makes me mad is that Brown committed strong-arm robbery but was labeled a shoplifter. What pissed me off is that he was portrayed as an angel and he was the kind of guy that would kill you for a dollar, or rape your sister. What pisses me off is that a group of biased witnesses even matter. What pisses me off is that Brown's parents are not fit to mourn and created this situation far more than the cops did. And what pisses me off is that Garner died for a non-violent crime.

@enoch

I'm not arguing that American laws are entirely reasonable. I'm simply arguing that, given America's significantly higher violent crime rates, American prisons have a much higher percentage of violent criminals than Norway's prisons. These criminals would love Norway's prisons and would be perfectly fine living in them.

The U.S. and Norway are very different countries with very different cultures, economic situations and crime rates. What works for Norway won't necessarily work for the U.S. One statistic I'd love to know is the recidivism rate for non-violent criminals in the U.S. I imagine it's significantly lower than the recidivism rate for violent criminals.

'You are here because of your actions, don't blame the corrections dept, or the cops, or the judge...'
He intentionally ignores the fact that the corrections dept is the largest lobbying group in Washington and lobbies for more draconian laws and mandatory sentences because that's how they make money. No inmates, no dough.

'You gave up your rights by committing murder....committing rape....'
He intentionally ignores the fact that most convicts are in prison for non-violent drug crimes, not murder, not rape, not violent crime at all.

'This is prison utopia...for the inmates.'
He seems too dense and set in his 'us VS them' mentality to see that it's prison utopia for the guards too, and society in the long run because this prison doesn't create violent criminals, it creates well adjusted citizens.

Imagine that, treating inmates like human beings, because we want them to act like human beings when they're released. And big surprise, it works! Not only less recidivism, but less problems while they're in the system as well.
Thanks to privatization and profitization of prisons and lobbying by prison guard unions, and a mindset by so many that all 'criminals' are sub-humans that don't deserve proper treatment, we'll never see this in the USA.

Permanently or temporarily 'crime and burglaries went up'?...by a statistically relevant amount or by .1%? ...by exactly the amount of armed robberies that no longer occurred (not armed, now it's burglary)? Could it be that cops had more time to police without worrying about armed thugs all day long and needing 6 officers to write a ticket to feel safe, so there's wasn't more 'crime' only more arrests? I assume you have a non-partisan Australian URL with the national crime statistics (both # reported and # of arrests) by year to verify your assertions and that this isn't wishful thinking masquerading as data? How about VIOLENT crimes and/or murders (there's a much more direct relation to that data set)?
(sorry, I took statistics, so I know that you can miss-represent statistics to 'prove' whatever you want, 47% of all people know that!)
We've had plenty of 'gun control' in the US already. You can't buy a Vulcan cannon, a full auto without an FFL, a 20MM, a 9lb gun (battleship style), and thousands upon thousands of models have been 'banned' either federally, state wide, or by county/city. There are limits on clip size, silencers, selective fire modes, unregistered sales, etc....the list of 'gun control measures' already in existence goes on forever...but we'll "never get any"?!? What the hell could you mean? I think you may just be being contrary, no matter how silly it makes you seem.
"Illegal gun owners" are disarmed every single day in the US, any time they are caught with the illegal guns. Again, what could you possibly mean? That we won't get rid of 100% of illegal guns (as if that's someone's plan or a necessity to solve most gun related issues), so there's no reason to ever limit their availability to anyone? Huh?!?

If often being correct and usually getting what I'm after (because my methods, which you decry as useless, worked for me) makes me a "loser", se la vie. I suppose, even though every statement you made is in direct opposition to all fact, you're a "winner"? Enjoy that.

Actually it was rhetorical, I knew where I was going to start, I was not asking you in a real way or expecting you to answer...that's what rhetorical means.
Because the video was limited to American schools and systems does not mean the comments will be, we have a diverse bunch of sifters from all over the globe that might want to comment, and might not stick to America as the only place that counts. It is logical to ASSUME you might have meant only American schools, but some of us don't assume we know another's meaning and just go with what you wrote. If you wanted to limit your comment to American schools, you could easily have written exactly that. There's not a character limit on posts!
Or, perhaps Bareboards2 knows some Americans that would be insulted by your painting them as lowest common denominators at their basest. I would be one. I admitted those you describe exist, and may even be a majority, but Americans are not homogenous by far, and there are many that do exactly what you claimed they don't.
It's not hard to CARE, it's hard to retain, it's hard to focus, it's hard to attend at times, it's hard to come up with supplies, it's not hard at all to CARE about education, and I've never met a person of lesser means that didn't wish they could get more education. Saying they don't care is insulting, saying they don't achieve (as well as rich counterparts) is fact, sad tragic fact.
Yes, I agree, we need to help the poor a LOT more, their plight is getting worse daily while those not in need are the only ones succeeding.
I'm right there with you on free higher education, for the betterment of the nation AND it's citizens. College grads are far less likely to commit violent crimes or otherwise be drains on society, so are a boon for all.
It sounds like you may be confusing a lack of time, money, ability, and energy with a lack of caring, or perhaps not. As I said, those you describe do exist, in large numbers, they are simply not the ONLY variety of American student.
What?!? If this woman is in class working and paying for a degree while trying to raise 3 kids, one disabled, it sure sounds to me like she CARES about education, and that she's not lacking in educational pursuance or lack of drive, she's possibly failing for lack of energy and time would be my guess, or maybe from lack of educational preparation, or innate ability. If she didn't care, she shouldn't be spending money and time being in class working for a degree that no longer guarantees more money, she should be in welding class, or making bank cleaning up the school. There's nothing wrong with that, I've done both. People who only want to get more money and don't care about knowledge should go that route, they'll have a much better chance of success and not be in crippling debt for a chance they'll use their diploma for financial gain.
WTF?!? When they stopped the abuse, did you care then? The poor have tribulations, but are not constantly working to the bone unable to even contemplate a better future because they're outrageously accosted by life every second of the day. Be real. When there's time to think, many people of all social strata think how they would like to lean something new. You obviously cared enough to be in classes now even with this abuse you speak of, just like I did when and after all those things happened to me (but with only one brother. For me it was actually incentive to learn more and be 'better' than my brother whenever possible, in order to have a better life, I know I'm a freak though ), so what's your point? The poor don't think about furthering their education 100% of the waking day because they're too busy being poor, so they don't care about it at all? That's just silly. I think many if not most don't think about it much because they've determined there's no reasonable opportunity for them to achieve it, so why dwell on what you can't have. It' s not an issue of not careing.
I think we should help them have the opportunity to gain higher education and ability to make use of that opportunity because we know most of them DO CARE about education, but could certainly use help to achieve it. Those that don't care (I again admit they exist, but not only among the poor) should be helped to care, because it's important for them and us to have everyone educated.
Jon Stewart was generalizing, not making a statement about each and every American. I only take issue with the broad brush strokes painting all Americans in the same ugly color, I think we're a quite varied and interesting group, and I don't resemble your generalization in the least...and I'm American. I did admit that I think many, if not most Americans do fit your description, but you seem to still take exception to that viewpoint.

Your "refutations" are, for the most part, self-defeating, so I will allow others to do their own research and come to their own conclusions rather than addressing each one. Suffice it to say that gun-control, in the U.S. at least, starts as an anti-minority measure (not unlike the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty") and spurs on a "dark economy" (or "underground economy"), not unlike what (eventually) felled the Soviet Union. It's not dissimilar to what's going on in Puerto Rico and, to some extent, the Bay Area (except NorCal doesn't have the feds all over them like Puerto Rico does, so violent crime is high in PR and low in Mendocino).

Is it purely a "coincidence" that Puerto Rico has a higher murder rate than almost anywhere else in the U.S, while citing as many as 50%+ of the people on "public assistance," is an epicenter on the "war on drugs" and has about the strictest gun control laws of anywhere in the U.S.?

But don't worry! Here's some good news!
"They found that a country like Luxembourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. . . . The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, conceded that the results they found in their report was not what they expected to find."

I guess they didn't account for the fact that outlaws don't really care about laws! The nerve of some people...

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

You seem to think that eliminating guns will somehow eliminate mass shootings. However, there is zero correlation to the number of legal gun ownerships with the number of homicides. In fact, here are some statistics for you:

At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes. And, as it happens, where gun ownership per capita increases, violent crime is known to decrease. In other words, Caucasians tend to own more guns than African Americans, middle aged folks own more guns than young people, wealthy people own more guns than poor people, rural families own more guns than urbanites --> But the exact opposite is true for violent behavior (i.e., African Americans tend to be more violent than Caucasians, young people more violent than middle aged people, poor people more violent than wealthy people, and urbanites more violent than rural people). So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least. This is, in large part, due to the cultural divide in the U.S. around gun ownership whereby most gun owners own guns for recreational sports (including the Southern Caucasian rural hunting culture, the likes of which aren't found in Australia or the UK or Europe, etc.); and about half of gun owners own guns for self-defense (usually as the result of living in a dangerous environment). Most of the widespread gun ownership in the U.S. predates any gun control legislation and gun ownership tends to generally rise as a response to an increase in violent crime (not the other way around).

There were about 350,000 crimes in 2009 in which a gun was present (but may not have been used), 24% of robberies, 5% of assaults, and about 66% of homicides. By contrast, guns are used as self-defense as many as 2 and a half million times every year (according to criminologist Gary Kleck at Florida State University), thereby decreasing the potential loss of life or property (i.e., those with guns are less likely to be injured in a violent crime than those who use another defensive strategy or simply comply).

Interestingly, violent crimes tend to decrease in those areas where there have been highly publicized instances of victims arming themselves or defending themselves against violent criminals. (In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home, whereas only 9% of home burglaries in the U.S. occur when people are in the home, presumably as a result of criminals' fear of being shot by the homeowner.) In short, gun ownership reduces the likelihood of harm.

So, for example, Boston has the strictest gun control and the most school shootings. The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings. The worst mass homicide in a school in the U.S. took place in Michigan in 1927, killing 38 children. The perpetrator used (illegal) bombs, not guns in this case.

1/3 of legal gun owners obtain their guns (a total of about 200,000 guns) privately, outside the reach of government regulation. So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed.

Out of a sample of 943 felon handgun owners, 44% had obtained the gun privately, 32% stole it, 9% rented/borrowed it, and 16% bought it from a retailer. (Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. Stricter legislation would likely therefore change the statistics of how felon handgun owners obtain the gun towards less legal, more violent ways.) Less than 3% obtain guns on the 'black market' (probably due, in part, to how many legal guns are already easily obtained).

600,000 guns are stolen every year and millions of guns circulate among criminals (outside the reach of the regulators), so the elimination of all new handgun purchases/sales, the guns would still be in the hands of the criminals (and few others).

The common gun controls have been shown to have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, however, according to the Dept. of Justice, states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate. A 2003 CDC report found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws reduced gun violence. This conclusion was echoed in an exhaustive National Academy of Sciences study a year later.

General gun ownership has no net positive effect on total violence rates.

Of almost 200,000 CCP holders in Florida, only 8 were revoked as a result of a crime.

The high-water mark of mass killings in the U.S. was back in 1929, and has not increased since then. In fact, it's declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. The murder rate and violent crime in the U.S. is less than half of what it was in the late 1980s (the reason for which is most certainly multimodal and multifaceted).

Regarding Gun-Free Zones, many mass shooters select their venues because there are signs there explicitly banning concealed handguns (i.e., where the likelihood is higher that interference will be minimal). "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns," says John Lott.

In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens, when a study has shown that private owners are convicted of firearms violations at the same rate as police officers? How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns? Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns? Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else? Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?

From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary. Do they really want to deprive those who are culturally acclimatized to gun-ownership, who may be less fortunate than they are, to have the means to protect themselves (e.g., women who carry guns to protect themselves from assault or rape)? Sounds more like a lack of empathy and understanding of those realities to me.

There are many generational issues worth mentioning here. For example, the rise in gun ownership coincided with the war on drugs and the war on poverty. There are also nearly 24 million combat veterans living in the U.S. and they constitute a significant proportion of the U.S.' prison population as a result of sex offenses or violent crime. Male combat veterans are four times as likely to engage violent crime as non-veteran men; and are 4.4 times more likely to have abused a spouse/partner, and 6.4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, unemployment, divorce/separation. Vietnam veterans with PTSD tend to have higher rates of childhood abuse (26%) than Vietnam veterans without PTSD (7%). Iraq/Afghanistan vets are 75% more likely to die in car crashes. Sex crimes by active duty soldiers have tripled since 2003. In 2007, 700,000 U.S. children had at least one parent in a warzone. In a July 2010 report, child abuse in Army families was 3 times higher if a parent was deployed in combat. From 2001 - 2011, alcohol use associated with domestic violence in Army families increased by 54%, and child abuse increased by 40%. What effect do you think that's going to have, regardless of "gun controls?"
("The War Comes Home" or as William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies said, "A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.")

In addition, families in the U.S. continue to break down. Single parent households have a high correlation to violence among children. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to married women. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women (a rate that rises to 53% for women under the age of 30). By age 30, 1/3 of American women have spent time as a single mother (a rate that is halved in European countries like France, Sweden, & Germany). Less than 9% of married couples are in poverty, but more than 40% of single-parent families are in poverty. Much of child poverty would be ameliorated if parents were marrying at 1970s rates. 85% of incarcerated youth grew up without fathers.

Since the implementation of the war on drugs, there's a drug arrest in the U.S. every 19 seconds, 82% of which were for possession alone (destroying homes and families in the process). The Dept. of Justice says that illegal drug market in the U.S. is dominated by 900,000 criminally active gang members affiliated with 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities, many of which have direct ties to Mexican drug cartels in at least 230 American cities. The drug control spending, however, has grown by 69.7% over the past 9 years. The criminal justice system is so overburdened as a result that nearly four out of every ten murders, and six out of every ten rapes, and nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved (and 90% of the "solved" cases are the result of plea-bargains, resulting in non-definitive guilt). Only 8.5% of federal prisoners have committed violent offenses. 75% of Detroit's state budget can be traced back to the war on drugs.

Point being, a government program is unlikely to solve any issues with regards to guns and the whole notion of gun control legislation is severely misguided in light of all that I've pointed out above. In fact, a lot of the violence is the direct or indirect result of government programs (war on drugs and the war on poverty).

(And, you'll note, I made no mention of the recent spike in the polypharmacy medicating of a significant proportion of American children -- including most of the "school shooters" -- the combinations of which have not been studied, but have -- at least in part -- been correlated to homicidal and/or suicidal behaviors.)