This assumes if he can't legally he'll give up, and this makes no sense. Guns can be purchased the same way narcotics can in the U.S and U.K.
And yet, this is exactly what seems to happen - these killings are typically made using legally-held weapons. In the UK,
all such killings have been. Why? Who knows. Maybe the type of person that carries them out doesn't have the wherewithall to talk to unsavoury characters at his local pub in order to get hold of a weapon. Maybe they fear being harmed by the criminals dealing them, or getting caught in the act and therefore being imprisoned for at least 5 years without the chance to prosecute their fantasy. Again, I don't know. But the fact is, they use legal guns, and what evidence we have suggests that when legal guns are removed from the equation, the killings cease. If we have another one in the UK in the next few years using some other weapon or an illegal handgun, the argument will have been weakened.
It's cultural and psychological. Consider the problem of radical Islam.
Yes, the problem of disaffected and disturbed individuals is cultural and psychological. Governments have shown themselves to be incapable of ameliorating this, and so they look to preventative measures. Banning is one. It may not be the best one, but in my country, it was the obvious and easy to implement one.
What your government did was make legal purchase difficult
Not difficult,
impossible. Even .22 manually-operated target pistols are illegal here. Unless you have or can develop criminal connections, you ain't getting a handgun, semi-auto rifle, or manually-operated shotgun of larger than two rounds capacity.
It didn't deter, in the least it happening again.
We don't know that. The data is insufficient. We had shootings like this using legally held weapons in 1987 and 1996. Post-ban (1997), we have had no comparable killings. Co-incidence? Quite possibly. The government may have theorised that the ban might reduce or eliminate future incidents, but they couldn't know that. They banned for emotional and political reasons, not practical ones. This is why I say I don't agree with the law, but I acknowledge that there's sound reasoning behind it, and thus far, no further shootings of this kind in this country. Take that for what you will.
That can't happen here because too many people own firearms and understand what nonsense those measures are.
Agreed. Public opinion is the driver in this case. If enough people were outraged at the annual loss of life on the roads, and felt comfortable with living without vehicles, the politicians would react by banning cars. In many countries, only a minority care about owning guns, so the decision to ban is an easy one. Doesn't make it right, necessarily, but that's democracy.
