McGrath, guns are no more available now than they were in my youth. I had guns, (.22 rifle, .22 pistol, 2 shotguns, and a high powered rifle) available to me. Most of my friends did as well. Yet there wasn't anything like the level of gun related deaths that there is now. Hunting, and the availability of weapons, is not a new phenomena in this country. They have been a part of our traditions from the earliest times. Despite what the anti gun folks try to get folks to perceive, the facts are that Americans are not in favor of taking the rights of law abiding gun owner away. Why? Because this isn't about the fact that I can purchase, carry, and shoot a weapon. It isn't even about the violence in movies, and on video games (even though I agree with you that, tragically, these contribute to young ones seeing this as a solution to whatever is bothering them). It is about getting to the underlying causes of young ones committing heinous crimes that most kids, gunowners or not, would not even consider. The fact that these kids came from affluent homes has nothing to do with the hopelessness. Lack of economic opportunity wasn't the source of this. But the bullying and being made to feel like they were the subject of disdain did. I would suspect that parents who didn't even know that these young men had pipe bomb making material in their rooms, didn't know the weapons they owned, these all suggest parents that were emotionally unavailable to their kids.

It just seems to me that as long as we alibi the problem to owning guns, ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of gunowners are responsible folks that obey the law, ignores the larger problem. And that will never lead to a solution. We must attack ferociously the root causes of violent behaviour.

Mick