Yeah, their default stance is "if we could have only prevented the bad guy from getting a gun then we would have prevented the shooting".vrentropy wrote:1,000,000,000,000,000 would not be enough. They just feel they have not taken it far enough.
So basically the logical disconnect is that 1. criminals abide by gun control laws or 2. regular normal people are all potential bad guys. So we have to prevent the normal people (potential bad guys) from getting a gun, in case they turn into a bad guy, and once they are a bad guy then they are going to continue to abide by the law preventing them from acquiring a gun.
Only a fool would rationally believe either of these things. But it's hard to beat the emotional appeal of "if there just were no guns, there would be no violence" that is the natural reaction of many people when something like this happens.
The correlary to to this argument, which is always the fallback position, is that "fewer law-abiding people with guns equals fewer guns, and fewer guns equals less chances for a bad guy to have a gun". Which is logically true, but a moot point. It depends on a lack of commitment to crime on the part of bad guys.
Of course I am preaching to the choir.