>You are mixing various arguments. The cliche that guns do not kill people - people kill people, is actually true.

And yet it's not completely true. How about "people with guns kill people".

Here's what I think is different here: a person with a gun has a different way of thinking. When cornered (by anyone, be it a burglar, policeperson or whoever), a person without a gun may find whatever way out may be available. A person with a gun will see a better half of the ways out achieved by shooting or at leas threatening with a gun.

And even an empty one fires once in a while.

>Secondly, imo instead of focusing on whether guns should be allowed or banned one should investigate why gun related crime occurs in the first place. Crime is the problem here, not the legality of guns. Criminals will commit crime and use whatever tools are available. So the question should be why is the crime rate high (or low in Holland) rather than whether the tool used to commit the crime is legal or not.

Good point - and there I think a society saturated with guns will only see its crime rate spiral out. They have an expression here, "trigger happy". It doesn't take much thinking to pull the trigger - and who knows how many simple robberies would have gone without victims had there been no gun at the scene.

IMO, the causes of the crime are the problem here. Guns only make it worse.

>Guns are not the problem. Crime is the problem. And crime is directly related to economic status, education, social wellfare, etc.

...which is being solved into oblivion, as the system does its best to lower the wages, cut the benefits, redistribute wealth upwards, cut the education (specially in third world countries). I can see several possible ways where this could go, but dystopiae are out of fashion, even in SF literature.

>From a political and societal point of view it is easier to blame the gun than the root cause of gun related death. In the first case we place blame on an object but in the second we must accept responsibility for failing a part of society, the poor and disadvantaged. A tougher pill to swallow.

And it's so much easier to make an issue of gun regulation - we can discuss it to death several times (because it never gets solved, and reincarnates regularly), while the underlying causes get only worse.