Swaparoni

In 1996 here in the UK we had a very similar incident to Sandy Hook - some fucker with a gun walked into a primary school in a quiet Scottish town called Dunblane, and murdered almost an entire class of six year olds. (I remember this vividly because I was also six years old and attending a primary school only a few miles away from Dunblane at the time - our parents were terrified, we were terrified, it was an awful, awful moment). 

As a result of the Dunblane massacre, the British government banned private handgun ownership.

Do you know how many school shootings we’ve had since 1996?

Big fat fucking zero. 

Do you know how many mass shootings we’ve had, total, since 1996?

One.  

Let’s recap: Since banning private handgun ownership twenty years ago, the UK has had ONE mass shooting. In that same time period, the US has had more than fifty. 

It’s almost like taking people’s guns away makes gun violence rare, or something.

And incidentally, the murder rate - firearms related and otherwise - in the UK is proportionately far lower than it is in the US, in fact pretty much any country that strictly regulates or outright bans gun ownership has a lower murder rate than the US does. So no, taking guns away won’t stop people killing each other, but it makes it a fucktonne harder and generally seems to contribute to lower overall rates of intentional homicide.