Uwe, there was no Bushmaster involved in the killings at Sandy Hook. The police removed the rifle from the trunk of his car. He used two handguns in his spree and killed himself in the school (so he couldn't have put it back in the trunk).
How are the gun laws in Norway? Did they stop Anders Behring Breivik?
The video I posted had to do (for the purposes of this thread) with what I mentioned, which was my commenting on the idea that America (and Americans as a whole) are more violent than comparable populations elsewhere in the world. They are not. Far more people were killed last year (in America and elsewhere) by any of the following than by "assault rifles" (or any other rifle): Baseball bats, knives, fists, gravity, cars, hammers... Should we ban them, too?
Gun control laws don't do much to stop criminals who are determined to use them (guns). I find it odd and strange that the same people who lament the failure of the drug war by calling for their widespread legalization will, in the same breath, call for more gun control thinking that such laws will stop gun crime and shooting sprees. If laws don't stop drugs from being grown/created, marketed, and consumed, how exactly will they rid the United States of the millions of guns (and ammunition) that already exist in the black market here?
In addition, Americans (for the most part) have the right to own guns for their own protection and for the protection of their families. From the very beginning it was understood that this protection also included the ability to rise up against a tyrannical government*. Those who enshrined that right in our Constitution had recently done exactly that. The 2nd amendment is not about hunting deer or shooting skeet. I understand that the possibility of that actually happening is right around nil, but the threat remains and is a good deterrent to those in government (at any level) who view our Constitution as a deterrent. I'm fully aware that there may come a time when Americans vote to amend that right, though I believe we're screwed if we do. In the meantime, repeated pleas to rid the world of guns will do nothing to stop the next Sandy Hook, nor the ones that follow. That is not to excuse or make light of killing, contrary to glib comments stating otherwise. Believing that wide scale gun bans are not the answer to these tragedies does not make those who feel that way any less humane or loving toward their fellow man.
*I grant that some people believe this right involves organized militias, but theirs is far from the only view. Besides, we all know how the U.S. government feels about anything resembling a militia these days.