I would also suggest that the reason you don't hear about it in Canada is that the population is also much smaller and less dense. And laid back Typically, gun ownership rates in Canada are much higher in rural areas than urban areas.

It only just struck me recently that one of the main purposes of the 2nd amendment is that Americans have a right to carry guns to 'protect themselves against tyranny in government', according to Thomas Jefferson. This somewhat surprised me, as I think the main party who support the 2nd amendment almost certainly got closer to running the sort of tyrannical government Jefferson had in mind... the Patriot act for instance...

Which is why something like microstamping is needed if they aren't going to do anything else about it.

Anyone seen bowling for columbine? I'm not a huge Michael Moore fan, but it was interesting. His conclusion was that it's not the gun laws per se, though no doubt that would help, but the culture of fear in the states. He references Canada and Switzerland in comparison.

Which is cool and all, but that's not the USA.
That's Switzerland.
A nation that has laws about how loud a car door can be when it closes.
It's notable for it's absence of massacres from legally held guns.

So, given that the USA's national character doesn't appear to be getting any smarter, what they can do is to start taking the guns away.

There will always be illegally held guns. However, the key thing to do is to make sure that there are as few guns in possession as possible, control your imports and eventually the total number of guns in the countries goes down.

Scarcity of availability makes things like this happening much less likely.

"Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms." - http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
That figure only tells us about deaths, not injuries or paralysis or amputations. Or incidents where a firearm was brandished but not fired - can be just traumatic to the victims.

How many have they had now since we had Dunblane and tightened up our gun laws?

According to this article, they have about 2 dozen mass murders a year and have done since 1970. It does strike me as being an incredibly high figure, and it is not sourced, so it is difficult to say on what terms the statistic is based,...

From the BBC:

I really don't think this was a spur of the moment attack, especially considering there's reports of a booby-trapped apartment.
It just strikes me that this was planned well in advance.

Mark

I'd love to see a study into any link between gun crime and the level of social welfare provided by the state. I'd also like to see one into a link between gun crime and social deprivation.

Well, here are a few (conflicting, judging from the abstracts) reports you might want to look through. Not had chance to properly look through them yet myself.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418820500219094
http://sanford.duke.edu/research/papers/SAN04-07.pdf
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/454-259_0.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2000.tb01413.x/abstract

You can always cherry pick the ones that support your opinion

I might sound a bit insensitive but one of the victims was 6. What was a 6 year old doing at a midnight screening of a 12A movie? (US PG13)

There was also a couple there that had a baby with them.
I saw them interviewed on TV and he said that he had the baby in his arms when it all started happening.
Maybe midnight screenings in America enforce the certificate ratings differently. *shrug*

Mark

I remember getting pissed off at bored kids during TDK never mind people taking babies along!

They're allowed. Anyone can go into a 12A in the UK now as along as they're with an Adult.

You see nothing wrong with a 6 year old being awake at midnight?