Even in a State With Restrictive Laws, Gunman Amassed Weapons and Ammunition - NYTimes.com
Mass murderer Elliott Rodger was able to acquire 3 handguns in California easily and legally, despite the State being considered to have some of the toughest gun laws in America.
There are two ways of looking at this: the American gun lobby will be arguing that it demonstrates that restrictive gun laws don't stop really determined killers (and it's true, he killed 3 by stabbing - although I still haven't read exactly how that happened) and so why bother with such laws? In fact, no matter how a mass killing happens, there is a powerful fantasy amongst gun lovers that if only there were more guns around, more mass killings would be prevented. An obscenely nutty ex Republican executive is said to have tweeted this: "No idea how my son will die, but I know it won't be cowering like a bitch at UC Santa Barbara. Any son of mine would have been shooting back." If the parent of one of the deceased beat this guy to within an inch of his life, no jury would convict.
The second way of looking at it is this: you can never guarantee that mentally disturbed young men will not kill, but if you make it pretty hard for anyone in society to get guns (and handguns in particular), you are going to have very few mass shootings involving handguns. Evidence for this - Australia and England.
Fortunately, Australians tend to think the second, sensible way. American-lite, Heinlein-ian libertarian fantasies of a society being better if everyone who wants to be armed is armed don't wash here, and may it forever remain so.
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