Like in the UK, where there are very few guns, very few gun deaths and no sign of a totalitarian state. NRA propaganda.
As I've said previously however, the problem is that national attitude and not the availability of weapons. See Canada.
Nothing to do with NRA or gun-control specifically. It's the general principle that when legislation is pushed on the back of an 'emotional' issue like the slaying of children, the likelihood of a sensible legislation passing is minimal. It will be something that "people back" at that point. (angry people, that is)
Like I said in my first post, if they wanted to make reducing gun deaths a priority, this anomaly (mass shooting) does absolutely nothing to change ones stance on the issue, if they were to look at it sensibly. Gun availability has increased, while gun deaths have decreased overall. There are other ways which have proven effective in reducing gun crimes.
Look at success stories like New York city, for example, where it has managed to reduce the rate of gun crimes at an unprecedented rate as far as major American cities are concerned. It was the worst among the major cities, now (per/capita) it is an example of reducing gun crimes at a rapid rate (90s, 00s). Gun-control measures have been pretty much the same throughout (among the highest in the US), even when gun-crimes were the highest in the country. What changed was that they implemented a pragmatic form of policing. They didn't apply 'global' legislation that would affect everyone but noticed that some neighborhoods or even 'sub-cultures' were much more problematic (massively disproportional heavy crime rates) and required more resources.
The same 'lefty' types that strongly favor draconian measures for everyone were strong opponents of the policies implemented in NY, supposedly because it would disadvantage the black community and encourage profiling and whatnot. In the end compared to decades past the main beneficiaries were precisely black teenagers, whose rate of involvement in gun deaths were decreased tremendously. And the measures aren't particularly draconian either, stop-and-frisk policies in known areas, allowing police officers to make use of 'street knowledge' that every civilian (black, white, pink) does, which was previously discouraged as to not encourage "profiling".
These policies though had many intricate components and are never as easy a slogan as "ban guns!". They actually require the policy makers to look at the numbers, make sense of the data, and yes even make use of it to spread resources efficiently.



