What I find interesting is how often the campaigners for gun restrictions use other regulated countries as there justification examples. I'm from UK and have spent 10 years in Australia. I can categorically tell you that the culture in each country has much more to do with gun deaths than how guns are restricted. In the UK the police didn't even carry guns (this may have changed in recent years). Australia is much more open to gun use, which may be why they are more often used as the example for gun restrictions by Americans wanting bans. Yet even here, gun deaths were decreasing even before regulations were introduced.

The mass killings that prompted gun restrictions in both countries were not perpetrated by mentally healthy people. You are also quite right that when someone who is mentally disturbed wants to kill people, keeping guns away from them merely removes one form of accomplishing this. It seems people are discovering that vehicles driven into crowded areas are pretty efficient at taking out a lot of people rapidly.

Admittedly the chances are high that countries like the UK and Japan have few households which even keep guns. However, there are also countries where most households have guns and still have low rates of gun deaths. So I would still say that culture plays a bigger role in the rate of gun deaths. Criminal elements don't get hold of guns legally in restricted countries anyway, so restrictions have no impact on them.

It seems to me that the issue to be addressed should be more along the lines of finding out why incidences like this are happening. What is going on in the American culture to cause higher gun deaths than in other cultures? Are other countries better attending to their people's mental health needs than America currently is?

I have never had or fired a gun and never felt the need to, so the American gun debate has been an interesting one for me. My first reaction is to wonder why on earth you'd need or want guns, but I also realise that I am from a completely different culture and recent history. When I listen to the arguments, both sides make valid points. Ultimately for me, however, freedom of choice should always win out. As long as you cause no harm, you should remain free to choose.