"And yet for all the gun control in Germany they still have mass casualty school shootings. For all the gun control in Russia they still have one of the highest murder rates on the planet."

Those are insidious, not rational arguments.

In the latest German shooting, the father of the shooter is being investigated for not storing the gun, used in the shooting, properly. The man had a total of 15 weapons of which only one wasn't in the strongbox it was supposed to be in. It was in the master bedroom. It so happens that a lot of fatal accidents with guns in the US are caused by guns kept 'under the pillow' as well. Not a very good argument for liberal gun-laws.

Gun laws in Germany specifically require you to a) take a test of mental stability before you can own a gun and b) store the weapons safely. Those laws seem to work a lot of the time but if someone doesn't do b) and someone else takes advantage of that to circumvent a) you're SOL, no matter what. As with most tragedies, a number of things need to go wrong before things really turn bad. This is a good example. Laws do work. The amount of gun casualties is incomparably lower in Germany.

That you bring up Russia, a third-world corrupt country, propped up by it's massive natural resources, is simply laughable. The only law that is really adhered to in ye ol' USSR, nay Russia, is the golden rule.

In other words, the rest of us is comparing civilized countries where the rule of law is upheld to other civilized countries and the conclusion can only be: liberal gun laws get a lot more people killed than strict gun laws, if properly upheld. The anti-social behaviour of people wanting to be able to 'defend themselves', at great cost to society at large, is despicable.