Can America finally have a real conversation about gun control?

USA overwhelming has the most school shootings in the world regardless of what data you use. (And it’s not just limited to schools either you can be shot at festivals, theaters, clubs etc all kinds of places in America).

Why don’t Americans do something about it? Because gun owners will overwhelmingly protest against it that’s why. Guns are uniquely part of American culture and history and I don’t think anyone who has lived in other countries can exactly understand it fully. Americans are extremely protective of their firearms. As a Canadian, I certainly cannot understand it fully either.

Cause in the aftermath of the recent Minneapolis Catholic school shooting, here are the most popular comments whenever gun control is brought up:

They always bring up the strawman arguments as to why guns shouldn’t be banned. Here’s what these gun supporters don’t seem to understand:

• America has by the far the most mass shootings in the world. Either they also have by far the most mentally ill people in the world OR.. its the guns. Pick one. China has 1.4B people and no mass shootings just FYI. Either they don’t have much mental illness for some reason.. or it’s the fact that they don’t have guns. Pick an explanation.
• Even if 99% of people are law abiding and don’t use guns to kill there’s always going to the 1% that will. Other countries have decided that the risk of having this 1% easy access to guns is not worth the freedom of owning a firearm. Americans think otherwise.
• “Criminals will always find a way” except in the vast majority of these cases, the shooter had NO criminal record! They literally were not criminals until the moment they commit the crime. Many of these perpetrators – like the Columbine shooters for examples – were kids themselves. So the ‘criminals’ argument doesn’t make sense because most of these shooters are NOT criminals but mentally ill people with easy access to guns.
• “But they can use cars and knives to kill” sure and how easy is it to kill people with a car and a knife compared to using a semi-automatic rifle? With a car you have to purposely drive into a large group of people somewhere that is accessible with a vehicle and not have them jump out of the way and with a knife you have to get close to a person and stab them quickly and also have it be a lethal wound. Neither compares to how easy it is to kill someone using a firearm.
• There’s never any good guys with guns at these places and even if there was they wouldn’t be in a position to fight back against these shooters. The ‘fighting guns with more guns’ argument is patently ridiculous and the good guy with a gun might even end up killing more innocent people by accident. That’s literally what the police are for. They ARE the good guys with the guys. Not some random civilian who shoots deer for fun.
• Guns don’t kill people but mentally ill people WITH easy access to guns kill people FASTER than they would with other weapons. Don’t know why Americans can’t seem to understand this basic logical point.

Like if this is so difficult to understand, let’s look at the most heinous school shooting example: Sandy Hook in 2012. In this shooting, the perpetrator Adam Lanza used his mother’s Bushmaster rifle to kill 26 people including 20 children.

Let’s imagine this in a country where guns are banned ok?
So Adam Lanza decides he wants to kill people because he’s mentally ill. His mother doesn’t have access to a rifle because they are banned. Since Adam is 20 and not part of a criminal organization, he doesn’t have black market access to weapons. He also decides that it’s too much of a hassle (nor does he have the components) to 3D print himself a firearm. So he decides to take a kitchen knife instead and murders her so she’s still dead. Then he gets some body armor and drives to Sandy Hook elementary school. There, he pulls up in front of the school and runs after everyone he sees with a knife. While he has a knife, teachers are able to protect the kids better and able to overpower him because a knife is much slower and less lethal to use than a firearm. By the time he is able to break free, the police have already arrived. A couple of teachers get stabbed, some are in critical condition, but all of them survive, and no kids are killed. The only victim is the mother who was defenseless and easy prey for him.

See.. this is how Sandy Hook would play out if guns weren’t so easy to get.