I know many of you are slavering at the mouth over this

.. because you think you have fresh ammunition for the old canard that if we reduced guns then we would still have as high a murder rate as we do.

A few problems I see:

First, even with these killings, China still has less homicide then the US. China has a homicide rate around 1.2 per 100,000 people. The US is around 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Secondly, no one ever said knives weren't lethal. They are incredibly lethal, in some ways more then a gun.. at close range. But the whole point of a gun is the ability to kill someone from a distance before they can run away or fight back. There are few drive by knifings and I'm pretty sure snipers gave up on the bow and arrow long ago.

So great! You've proved knives are lethal in the right circumstances. Too bad no one was saying otherwise.

And lastly the basis for the argument behind this is fallacious.

Yes in China they have strict gun control laws and yet here was this horrible tragedy. And even in countries with gun laws stricter then ours, there are massecres using guns. The UK had Cumbria and Hungerford.

So , the argument goes, we shouldn't do gun control laws because criminals won't obey the law (since that is what makes them, by definition, criminals)

But wait.. if we take to it's logical conclusion then why stop at gun control laws? Why have laws against murder or rape or stealing? Why have laws at all.

Last I heard, people were still committing murder and rape and stealing. So why single out gun law when clearly criminals are willing to commit all manner of crimes? Is it possible that the demanding 100% effectiveness for any law is unreasonable? (especially when there are lots of variables for crime, gun availability being just one)

This is what bugs the hell out of me about these debates. Arguing we shouldn't concern ourselves with gun control laws because it's unlikely to stop all violence acts as a distraction to the real relevant question..

Are there gun control laws that would reduce gun fatalities and if so, which ones?

We can't even bring that question up as part of a debate on public policy without being attacked. Even researching this is seen as some back handed attempt at banning guns. Publicly funded research on gun deaths is now seen as political suicide. And that's a problem because as bad as the attack in China cited above and the massacres in the UK and elsewhere in the world...

When it comes to gun deaths, these other countries at their worst is nothing compared to our average day.