They are sure enough cutworms.

Crazy people/criminals are going to kill people. They will use a gun, a rock, a knife, or their hands. It started with Cain and Abel. Many serial killers didn't use guns -- like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. Two of my sons (and one wife) have concealed carry licenses. They are both military trained (one got the Marksmanship Award in Boot Camp.) And I am thankful that if a bad guy starts shooting, they can legally take him/her out. My husband and I are researching buying the best handgun(s) for us and will be getting our concealed carry licenses. You never know now, when some crazy is going to start shooting up the place. If we make guns illegal, only the law-abiding citizens won't have guns -- the criminals/crazies will still get them on the black market. My sons live in Houston (we moved from there a year ago) so this shooting really hits home. Problem is that schools are "gun-free" zones, so law-abiding citizens don't bring legal guns on campus. But criminals/crazies do. What if a law-abiding, concealed carry citizen was legally able to carry on campus and take the criminal out after the first shot? And yes, I do support armed guards in our schools. Unless someone wants to die as a suicide by police, armed guards would take away the thrill of mass murder from the sickos this society has produced.

The thing that you have to remember when talking about America when you are in another part of the world is, in America news is a very big business. While gun deaths are often reported widely and for days in reality gun homicides in the U.S. are somewhere between 2.75 and 3.5 per 100,000 people. While I agree that even one is too many, to say that Americans worry about getting shot is really more a bi-product of the sensationalist attention that gun crimes get in the media. An incredibly significant majority of people in America will go through their entire life without ever being near a violent crime (not including a fist fight between young people) and most of those involved in a violent crime will never see a gun used in a crime. Statistically in America, unless you are in a gang, then you are more likely to be shot by your brother, father, husband, kid, sister, wife or mother than you are by a robber. I have read the stat in a published peer reviewed academic paper that if anyone in your house buys a gun then you are 1.9 times more likely to die from a gun, which is telling. I agree that guns are a problem in America, but for us I am not sure that banning is a real possibility. Guns are part of our culture. Imagine banning alcohol in the UK, and you can start to get a sense of the relationship, healthy or not, that many Americans have with guns. There are solutions that can really help without banning. Knowing where the guns are and licensing owners would help, an ad valorem (property) tax on guns would go a long way to removing unregistered possessions and untraceable guns. I am not talking about restricting ownership just doing the same thing we do for cars and homes. The drawback is that registering is also the first very necessary step to ban guns, which leads to resistance.

Other countries also have “bad guys”. And gangs. Here, they mostly shoot each other using black market guns. Mass/school shootings in the US are usually done by “ordinary” people and kids using guns legally purchased. Gun control works. Look at Scotland. After 16 kids died in Dunblane they implemented strict gun control and haven’t had a single school shooting since. Australia responded similarly to a shooting there and it worked. https://www-m.cnn.com/2017/10/04/world/gun-control-uk-australia/index.html These events helped turned the tide of opinion against private gun ownership. Law makers and voters put the protection of human lives before protection of archaic gun rights. People in most western countries don’t have to think about bulletproof backpacks even for a second. I never ever worry someone is going to shoot my children at school or when they’re playing with a friend.