Quote Originally Posted by psychocat
Unfortunately the actual crime figures show more guns just equals more violent crime.
A Time Line of Recent Worldwide School Shootings — Infoplease.com
My apologies for the delay in replying. Life is busy.

While each of the items you list are tragedies, listing anecdotal incidents isn't listing crime figures. I can list just as many (if not more) cases where firearms were used to protect the innocent and save lives.

I can state that during the six years since Michigan joined the majority of states that offer citizens a shall-issue Right-to-Carry law the number of firearm-related fatalities has dropped. Criminal activity has dwindled while the number of Michiganders legally licensed to carry a concealed handgun has increased by about six times. Approx. 155,000 Michiganders are now so licensed. These results aren't surprising. John Lott, visiting professor at the University of Maryland, has spent years researching violence in the United States. 2/3rds of the studies he has seen show that Right-to-Carry laws reduce crime. The other 1/3rd show little effect on the status quo. No peer reviewed study has ever indicated that crime increased after passage of such laws. Michigan law requires that those seeking a permit must complete a strict training process and pay a licensing fee. People who comply with such requirements tend not to be offenders. Here are some studies for your examination: Prof. Hans Toch, "Research and Policy: The Case of Gun Control," in Psychology and Social Policy, edited by Peter Sutfeld and Philip Tetlock (NY Hemisphere, 1992); David B. Mustard, "Culture Affects Our Beliefs About Firearms, But Data Are Also Important," 151 U. Penn. L. Rev.1387 (2003) As a young researcher Toch believed that "reducing the availability of the handgun will reduce firearms violence." Thirty years of research later he repudiated that: "When used for protection, firearms can seriously inhibit aggression and can provide a psychological buffer against the fear of crime. Furthermore, the fact that national patterns show little violent crime where guns are most dense implies that guns do not elicit aggression in any meaningful way. Quite the contrary, these findings suggest that high saturation of guns in places, or something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggression." Prof. David Mustard wrote in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review: "When I started my research in 1995, I passionately disliked firearms...My views on this subject were formed primarily by media accounts of firearms, which unknowingly to me systematically emphasized the costs of firearms while virtually ignoring their benefits. I thought it obvious that passing laws that permitted law abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms would create many problems. (But research has convinced me that)...laws that require [Right-to-Carry] permits to be granted unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness reduce violent crime and have no impact on accidental deaths."

I hope you found this to be informative and consider this in an objective manner.