Massacre in Great Britain

Yesterday, in the Cumbria secion of Great Britain, mass shooter Derrick Bird killed twelve people and injured twenty-five more. As the BBC reports,authorities have yet to be able to determine a motive, though reports indicate the shooter had been having familial problems.

My Gut Reaction: Am I the only one who's noticed that Great Britain experiences these events every five or ten years or so, while the United States seems to experience them every few months.

Analysis: It has pretty much been established to everyone who wants to think about it that the wide availability of guns in the United States contributes to the high number of mass shootings and gun violence in our country. The thing that strikes me most about what happened in Britain is how rare these events are over there, particularly as compared to here.

I am not arguing that we immediately implement British style laws banning hand guns. As desirable as ridding America of hand guns may be, that cat is already well out of the bag. It would require massive infringements on civil liberties to confiscate every hand gun in America, such that the cure would in many respects be worse than the disease. Nevertheless, the contrast of the two countries should be spur enough to lead us to consider far tighter regulation of fire arms and enforcement of fire arm laws in this country.