A Canadian weighs in with common sense.

Not exclusively. There is something uniquely pathological about American culture.

Chicken & egg question. Are we violent because we have guns or do we have guns because we are violent?

Well, we've been violent since before the Revolutionary War.

But Canadians also had wars back then, with the native Americans and British and French and stuff :o

Our history has been more violent.

Yep. Let's face it, many Americans are just plain psycho.

Most liberals think banning guns will prevent gun violence. However making gun control legislations does not stop gun violence or access to guns, Mr. Phillip Luty proved anyone has access to firearms by making the 9mm luty from spare parts in a house garage, as well as bullets from scratch. Criminals also don't follow laws, so why would a criminal listen to "common sense" gun control legislations. "If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim" (Jeff Cooper). Criminals don't fear being prosecuted, otherwise they would not be criminals at all. In fact when the criminal opens fire on innocent people a law isn't going to stop them, but a well placed bullet will. On December 29 in 2019 a criminal attempted to shoot a church congregation in Texas. "When a man pulled a shotgun out from under a long coat and started shooting into a church congregation near Fort Worth, Texas, last winter, Jack Wilson didn't hesitate. Within seconds, the volunteer security guard unholstered his weapon and returned fire. With one shot, Wilson killed the 43-year-old gunman and then kicked the shotgun away. Keith Thomas Kinnunen had already shot two congregants, who died. But there were more than 250 people in the West Freeway Church of Christ that day, on Dec. 29, and many credit Wilson for saving many more lives"(https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/918185532/grand-jury-declines-to-indict-church-security-guard-who-killed-gunman-in-texas). Many more examples of foiled attempted shootings have similar stories, a trained civilian with a firearm stops the criminal shortly after the criminal starts firing. Gun laws won't stop gun violence and mass shootings or access to firearms. Only a trained civilian with a firearm can stop criminals immediately and prevent further violence.

It's not as easy as "criminals don't follow laws." That logic would undermine the basis for every single law on the books. We have laws anyway, because they protect things that we consider important. Anything more important than child safety? I don't think there is. Hence: seatbelt laws, baby formula regulations, and all sorts of other protections that we accept because the benefits are worth it.

"Good guy with a gun" situations are rare. The deaths we see out there are by evil guys, or even more frustratingly, normal people who committed an accident.

"Good guy with a gun" situations happen often, just not often in cities with high crime rates and strict gun laws which prevent people from protecting themselves, and in schools which is a good example of places void of the 2nd ammendment. "25.3 Million Americans (31% of gun owners) have used a gun in self defense. In nearly 82% of these cases, the gun was never fired. According to the National Research Council study done during Obama’s presidency, guns are used for self defense between 500,000 – 3 Million Times Every Year
(1,369 – 8,219 Times Every Day) Because many cases of self defense are not reported to the police, the real number may be on the higher end" (National Research Council). Most times shots do not need to be fired, the sight of a good guy with a gun scares most criminals into giving up, because the "good guy with a gun" is quick to react and will not hesitate in a crisis. Secondly most schools are weapon free zones, preventing students and teachers from protecting themselves, if the situation arises. In the case of the Uvalde shooting you can not always rely on the police to completely protect you from everything, especially when years earlier they were often defunded with the riots of 2020 in the summer.

Police are the ultimate “good guys with a gun” — we train them, we employ them specifically for this purpose — yet even they can’t (or won’t) protect us in every situation, that’s an argument against relying on good guys with guns.

But I understand that by “good guy with a gun” you want to suggest that we rely for our safety not upon police, but rather upon strangers, who may be decent people at heart, but do not have the training a police officer might get and aren’t obligated to defend you at all. Citizens can turn tail and run from active shooters, regardless of how armed they are, and frankly probably should. I don’t know any police officers who would prefer to run into the fog-of-war of a multiple-active shooter situation than one with just one shooter.

Let’s go with an even more on-point example. Rare, but illustrative.

Let’s assume that we have a mass shooter on the loose, who’s already killed 2 people, but before the authorities arrive, he’s stopped cold by a “good guy with a gun” who’s both well-trained enough to hit his target and courageous enough to actually do it.

If you’re a gun advocate, then this is your ideal situation! An average armed citizen standing up courageously against evil, just like our Founders intended!

Problem is, after this riveting clash of good-and-evil, we are still left with 3 dead bodies — dead from gunfire, than we would have had in a society that never allowed that situation to happen.

(Of course, most mass shootings do *not* end in this way. They most likely end with on the one hand, the shooter offing himself and taking the coward’s way out, or on the other, with the SWAT team.)

What the “good guy with a gun” scenario shows is that even in the best of circumstances, gun advocates have bodies to answer for. They always do.

Society will always have mass shootings regardless of whether guns are allowed or not. The department of justice did a study of prisoners and found "Fewer than 1 in 50 (less than 2%) of all prisoners had obtained a firearm from a retail source and possessed, carried, or used it during the offense for which they were imprisoned"(U.S. Department of Justice). The gun legislations do not prevent criminals from getting firearms. Secondly if guns were completely removed, mass shootings would still happen, because a gun can always be made from scrap, Mr Philip Luty proved this by making a submachine gun from garbage he found in his garage. Thirdly people with terrible plans of murder would still make it possible with other tools. In the United Nations 2019 "Study of Global Homicide" they found that nations with firearms banned still had firearm homicides and had higher knife homicides, "In North America, firearm deaths were responsible for roughly 76% of all homicides, with knife-related homicides accounting for less than 20%. However, the numbers are reversed in Europe, where guns account for barely 20% of homicides but knives are used nearly 40% of the time"(https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country). Even when a nation bans firearms, there is still many firearm homicides and mass murders will still happen, but with other tools. A law preventing people from owning firearms will not stop firearm homicides from happening, or stop homicides from happening.