General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A person capable of shooting a five year old eleven times is beyond gun control. [View all]Bradical79
(4,490 posts)He probably would've been homicidal regardless of the tools available to him.
Different tools provide different levels of efficiency and safety for the user however. There's a reason our military uses modern guns rather than swords and spears. It's because you can kill people faster with them, from greater range, with more accuracy, and the target has less defense against them.
You've got at least 2 or 3 parts to the equation of reducing gun violence that I can think of (depending on how you divide things up).
1. Gun/arms control: Limit the access people have to high powered killing devices.
2. Improved mental health care: This is probably best done through a good universal health care system, imo.
3. Sharing of our country's prosperity: Basically income redistribution. I'm not saying socialism, capitalism, or any other specific system here, but closing the income gap between rich and poor would be a key to improved mental health in that you'd have less people feeling desperate and hopeless. I would think you'd also have less robberies.
You could also look at the "drug war" as another key area for serious change, as a lot of gun violence seems to involve the illegal drug market. For as much money as is poured into it, it seems to be a colossal failure.