The whole point of the Mother Jones article can be summarized as follows:

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X shot the place up and did not choose it based on it's gun policy.

Fair enough. All I am saying is that this may have happened:

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X realized that people there carry guns and gave up.

Or perhaps this.

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X started to shoot the place up but was shot himself, and thus never made it to the national news.

Are you saying that the last two scenarios never happened? Really?

Nice quote from the article:

Among the 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years that we studied, not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns.

And yet how many mass shooting were prevented because the person REALIZED that people there did carry weapons. Whoops, the article never mentions this. We only know about the ones that happened, not the ones that never made it past the planning state. Maybe the person goes through with the thought of a mass killing because there is nothing (like an armed response) to stop them. But why let logic get in the way of an article that reinforces your prejudices?

And the "murder-suicide" thing doesn't hold water either. The purpose of a person in this kind of mind set is to do as much damage as possible before they die. If you are going to plan to go out in a blaze of glory and want your own posthumous Wikipedia page, you probably want to kill a dozen before you die, not get shot by an honest citizen as you were getting out of your car. There are many instances of mass shootings being stopped by honest people.

And, don't point to that stupid Mother Jones article about "nobody has stopped a mass shooting." That is full of so many logical holes that you loose credibility by mentioning it.

Well, Australia and England now cracks down on knife ownership, since they got rid of the gun bogeyman, but violence still happens (actually, violence in Australia has gone UP while it has gone DOWN over here). Do a google image search for "Stop Knife Violence."

Once knives are banned, then it will be "stop club violence" and you will need a license to buy a 2x4.

The problem isn't the weapon, it is human nature, including economics, mental health care, the culture, and the family structure.

You should not determine public policy by "mass violence." True mass shootings are relatively rare -- they just seem common because of the publicity. It is much better to compare the number of mass shooting victims to the number of people who are struck by lightning. There is a thing called "unintended consequences." Maybe you have heard of it.

Now, if you actually DID remove all guns, that means that they have also been removed for the hands of honest citizens, and prevented them from preventing crimes! Guns are used around 800,000 times to per year to deter crime (from Wikipedia on defensive gun use).

Did you know that for every gun used to murder somebody, there are over 30,000 guns that were NOT used in crime? The rates look far worse if you compare the number of penises compared to the number of forcible rapes, and yet you do not claim that we need to reduce the number of male members in society. Why not?

I really do not understand the hate involved here. Let's assume that climate change is NOT happening. We still have the following facts:

1) Fossil fuels are a limited supply. Maybe enough for another 50 years. Maybe 100. But still limited.

2) We purchase large amounts of oil from countries that, in general, do not like us.

3) If it were not for oil, our interest in the middle east would decline greatly, which would be a good thing. If Muslims want to kill Muslims, that sounds like their problem. There is no "right" side in a conflict like that.

For all of these reasons, we should be decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels. More fuel efficiency and alternative fuels just simply make long term sense, even without considering climate change.

So, what is the problem?

You do know that some SUVs have room for more people and/or more cargo, right? I have five kids (three are adopted, before you start whining about overpopulating the planet). Try finding a car that will hold seven people. Some SUVs have third row seating. How about people who want to actually go off-road? Should they drive a Prius so that they need to be towed out of the woods? How about people who have to haul trailers.

In short, you are either short-sighted, or a troll, or both.

Must be much easier to be right when you just ignore any statistics that you don't like. I wish that I could do that. Alas, I am too honest.

Another stat. Russia has very strict gun control, and they have a much higher murder rate than the US. Using your logic of focusing on only ONE statistic, banning guns leads to an increase in murder, right? I, however, am not as ignorant or dishonest as you appear to be. I could trumpet that Japan bans guns and has a much higher suicide rate, and claim that this is BECAUSE of their gun laws, but that would be dishonest. I realize that countries are complex places.

So, since it appears that the percentage of homicides caused by guns has not been eliminated due to the gun laws, we can draw one of two conclusions:

1) The new gun laws also magically kept people from killing each other with knives and clubs.

2) Perhaps, just perhaps, the drop in the homicide rate is due to some other factor: social, environmental, or economic.

Nope. Can't be #2. Countries never change at all in any other way besides gun laws. Economies are essentially static, stock prices never change, people never move from urban to rural areas, and culture never changes.

No, now that that mystery is solved, we just need to figure out how gun laws keep people from stabbing each other.

Cherry-picked? Ha.

Why did I choose 1995? Simple. The Australian government started cracking down on gun ownership in 1996. I wanted the latest year that I could find that was before the gun ban. Period. Nothing sinister about that. That site also does not have any data before 1995.

Why 2012? The very last year that the data in available on that chart. Period My reasons for those years are based on reasons that have nothing to do with getting the results that I want. I gave my links to the Australian Government web site. There is nothing stopping you from compiling your own statistics

Oh, by "cherry-picked" do you mean how gun-control advocates only publish "gun homicides" and conveniently ignore beating and stabbing deaths, as if people who are stabbed are somehow less dead?

Not a solution
Not relevant

Ummm. Right. So, people might get stabbed, so let's ban knives? People die in car accidents, so let's ban cars? Rights. Same logic. Some **FACTS** for you:

There were 8855 gun homicides in the US in 2012. There were about 270,000,000 guns in the US (middle estimate). So, for every gun used in a murder, there were 30490 guns that were NOT used in a murder. Yes, over THIRTY THOUSAND. Wow. we really need to crack down on those 30,000.

Do you have an authoritative reference that shows the "point of law is to indicate what's OK and not OK"??

Wow. The fail is strong with this one. That is pretty much the definition of a law. Check out the very first sentance of the Wikipedia article about law:

"Law is a system of rules enforced by governments to govern behaviour."

  So, yes, that means that laws define what is OK and not OK. Please take your trolling elsewhere.

The people who inhale the paper dust? The people whose peace is shattered by the gun shot?

Wow. You are REALLY reaching for this one. When you run out of facts, it is amusing to see what you try to present.

On the basis of the example given - no one. There's an assertion that the gun will protect the woman. The false logic that a gun is an equaliser. Another assertion that the "ex-husband" is "crazy". Yet another unsubstantiated assertion that somehow being "crazy" means the ex-wife is at risk from something that only a gun can protect her. Emotive, speculative, logically flawed, and totally irrelevant to the legislation that was speculatively proposed.

Ha. If a crazy ex-husband breaks in and finds a gun pointed at him, you think that will NOT be a deterrent? I am also sure that you personally know every single ex-husband in the US and can personally vouch for the gentleness and sanity of each and every one of them? More epic fail here.

Check out the Wikipedia article that states:
"Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU (defensive gun use) incidents in the United States."

Yes, guns are used approximately a MILLION TIMES EACH YEAR to deter or prevent crime. Amazing what you learn when you use facts. And only around 8,000 gun murders. Sounds like they are doing FAR more good than bad (hint: 1,000,000 is much greater than 8,000).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Maybe to you, but real life not so much. If you removed all the gun laws tomorrow it'd still be an offence to shoot someone (assault).

Exactly. If murder is already illegal, assault is still illegal, do we really need to make it "extra-illegal" to shoot somebody?

Gun laws are there to keep voters happy as a measure designed to reduce the risk that someone might do "something bad" with a gun.

Somebody might do "something bad" with a penis! WIth 83,425 forcible rapes in 2011, and approximately 153,000 penises in the country, there are 18,380 "good" penises for every "bad" one that commits a rape. To compare this to guns your penis (assuming that you are male) is 60% more likely to commit a rape than my gun is to commit a murder. Sounds like you need to get castrated to me.

As to keeping voters happy, that lead to the Patriot Act to "keep us safe." That lead to taking your shoes off in the airport and no liquids. Giving up freedom for the appearance of security. It is call "security theater." As long as people FEEL safe, who cares what the reality is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Bullshit. I'm relatively honest - how does the "cracking down on ownership" negatively affect me? It doesn't unreasonably affect me. (I'm assuming that part of your problem is the inability to differentiate between "law-abiding" and "honest". "Honesty" doesn't mean you obey the law - it just means you'll admit breaking it if asked.)

Well, if you own guns, and the government says "hand them it," then YES it does affect you. And stupid laws DO affect honest people. Read this and tell me how this situation makes anybody any safer: http://www.philly.com/philly/n...

Or how about this one where a man is arrested for a FLINTLOCK -- the sort of weapon common when the Constitution was written: http://dailycaller.com/2015/02...

(you can save your libertarian self-protection bullshit for the Congo or somewhere else you shouldn't reasonably expect your taxes to pay for police to actually do their jobs).

So, the police are there to protect you? Does your area have a guaranteed service time? There in two minutes or your next arrest is free? Sorry, the courts have rules that the police have no legal obligation to protect you. They do their best, but if the closes cop is 10 minutes away, there is nothing they can do. Their primary job (aside from writing tickets to make money) is to catch criminals after the fact. If somebody intends me harm, I do not want to be an "after the fact." The fact that you are OK with this is fine by me, but don't tell me how to live my life.

Anyways, enough time wasted on you. Come back when you have facts.

OK. Stupid question here. How would such laws stop bad guys.

Let's assume that an honest guy was considering printing a gun. He obeys the law. Number of lives saved? None. An honest person would not commit a murder whether they have a gun or not.

Now, let's assume that a person has a 3D printer and actually intends to print a gun. Will this law stop them? No -- since they are already planning to break the law, breaking another will not stop them. Number of lives saved? None.

So, please tell me how these laws make sense.

Oh, and one more thing. While the murder rate in Australia has declined in the last couple of decades, it has actually declined MORE in the USA. But, since people against gun ownership have to cherry-pick their data, you will probably ignore this fact too.

Generally, the point of the law is to indicate what is OK and what is not OK, and to provide punishments for those that break the law.

In murder and rape, there is a victim. For ponzi schemes, there is a victim.

If a guy gets a gun and blows a bunch of holes in a piece of paper, who is the victim? If a woman gets a gun to protect her from her crazy ex-husband, who is the victim?

The point here is that OWNERSHIP of a gun is NOT bad. It is what you DO with the gun that actually matters. Cracking down in ownership really only affects the honest people. Criminals who intend to break the law certainly do not mind breaking one more law to get a gun. It really is not that hard to figure out.

why are so many americans such fucking morons when it comes to the simple undeniable truth: more easy guns = more senseless death, not protection

Simple. IT ISN'T TRUE.

How about using (gasp) some FACTS! Hard to believe, but if it were true, you should be able to prove it.

Australia has greatly tightened its gun laws since 1996. Let's look at the great change.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

According to this, in 1995, guns accounted for 18.38% of all murders. In 2012, guns accounted for 17.5% of all homicides. Yes, less than one percent drop! WOW! WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

OK. Gun homicides DID go down quite a bit, but so did knife homicides and blunt object homicides. Did Australia ban all knives and clubs? Yes, the police hassle people who carry such things in public, but you can have a bunch of cricket bats and very large knives in your home in Australia.

The homicide rate went down overall, but the proportion of weapon used did not seem to change much as at.. This points to some other cause for the drop in homicide. Some people point to less lead in the environment -- removing lead from gasoline and paint, for example.

So, tell me. Where is your proof?

Oh, and in the US, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Copy this table into your favorite spreadsheet. Make an X-Y scatter plot of "Gun Ownership" and "Murders." Add a trend line. Look: more guns = less homicide (a weak trend, but it is there). Hey, the District of Columbia has the most murders and the least number of guns (wow, go figure). Delete that row. Look, the trend is still there -- weaker, but still there.

Now, I ask you: where is your proof?