Why do mass shootings make people want gun control?

Well...they don't particularly. As the mass shootings flow by at Fort Hood, Aurora, Portland, Wisconsin, Newtown and Charleston, nobody is changing their minds as a result. They don't make a difference. They do cause people who would like to have more gun control or to appeal to voters who would like gun control to speak up briefly but ultimately these events are politically trivial. They don't make people want anything. They don't change the polling results.

However, the statement that "criminals will always get their hands on guns" is dubious. Roof _wasn't_ a criminal until the moment he opened fire. He was just some average dimwit with a bug up his butt. If it was a bit difficult to get a gun...well he probably wouldn't. He might have run amuck with a knife or a car instead. That being said it's constitutionally and politically impossible to clamp down on gun ownership in the United States so talking about gun control is a politically manipulative talking point, not something to take seriously.

Because more often than not most of those shootings are done by mentally ill and people wonder how they got a hold of a gun in the first place. And a lot of them legally, some not. But I'm a democrat and I personally don't think just getting rid of them will be a solution. Mentally ill and racists like dylann roof would still find a way.

I would want gun control if it were possible to outlaw guns entirely so nobody had them.

But since there are already 300 million guns in the US, it will be impossible to make this happen. for that reason I agree with you. Arm more people and criminals will be afraid to commit crimes. Although I don't want to carry around a hunk of metal in my pocket all day

Because armed citizens almost never stop mass shootings. I think that opponents of gun control have an unrealistic sense of how guns can be used for self defense. First off, local laws do not always allow people to carry guns on their person in public places. Second, even in places which make it easy for civilians to carry guns around it's relatively rare for them to do so. The chances of an armed civilian being in the same vicinity as a mass shooter is rare. And then we have to factor in the likelihood that they realize what's going on, are in a position to try and stop it, and have the bravery and skill to engage in a firefight with someone who is shooting at them (opponents of gun control often assume that simply having a gun turns you into Dirty Harry, but many people, even armed ones, would be hesitant to run into such danger). The number of gun owners in the US has been declining in recent decades even as it has become easier and easier to buy guns. So it's not like there will always be an armed person nearby, particularly in a situation such as the one in Charleston, involving people at a prayer meeting at a church with a strong historic connection to the non violent protest movement.

There has been an increase in the number of mass shootings over the past several years. However, if we go back across all of the mass shootings for the last couple of decades there has only been one which stopped by an armed civilian (as opposed to law enforcement of some kind). In 1997, a teenager in Pearl, Mississippi stabbed his mother to death and then drove to his high school where he shot two classmates. As he tried to flee the scene, an assistant principal used his personal .45 to stop the kid and held him until police arrived. And even this case is questionable as an example of a "civilian" managing to stop a mass shooting event. The principal in question was an Army reservist and so had much more firearms training than your average citizen. The general rule, despite this exception, is that mass shooters are stopped either because they take their own lives or are caught or killed by law enforcement. There have been a couple of cases of off duty law enforcement stopping mass shooters and IIRC at least one of an armed security guard stopping one, but this idea that opponents of gun control have, of an ordinary joe with a gun shooting down some rampaging lunatic, just doesn't happen. An example of this is the shooting in Arizona a few years ago which wounded Representative Gabby Giffords. In that case there was a "good guy with a gun" in the shopping complex where the shooting happened. He rushed to the scene but by the time he got there unarmed bystanders had already wrestled the shooter into submission. In fact he almost shot an innocent person because he saw one of the bystanders holding the shooter's gun and thought he was the shooter.

So armed civilians don't provide a lot of protection against mass shooting incidents. But easy access to guns allows these shootings to happen. In other countries these kinds of mass shooting events are really rare and thats in part because they make it harder for people to obtain guns.

Because liberal logic only exists in Fairy Land. The press goes bonkers about spree shootings like the recent one in Charleston, but these are only a small fraction of the crimes involving a firearm that happen every year. The vast bulk of them involve illicit firearms, and should be nothing to impugn the millions of responsible and reasonable gun owners.

Because most people aren't gun fetishists, brainwashed by the NRA.

They don't sit, stroking their gun, late at night and fantasizing about out-drawing deranged maniacs and zombie hordes.

Not everyone shares your rich fantasy life of being an action movie star.

I'll agree that taking away legally obtained guns from law-abiding people won't do anything to take away illegally obtained guns owned by criminals, but it is natural for people to want to do SOMETHING.

Sure - it would give you and the NRA a big thrill to have Americans everywhere shooting at other Americans everywhere. What are you? A Nazi? I think the FBI needs to pay a visit to you soon.

Because if they weren't put into the hands that shouldn't have them, they wouldn't happen. Why should seeing people walk around in the local Target with firearms become normal?

Why does the Bubonic Plague make people want penicillin?