Alex Minissian killed as many people with a rented U-Haul truck. The Ariana Grande concert attack was double that amount, and that was with a homemade bomb. If you want to kill people, you will find a way.
Thank God the cops were nearby in Dayton or that would have gotten a whole lot worse.
When bombings and mass killings via U-Haul trucks are a phenomenon that occurs multiple times within a given year in America you might have a salient point... But those things are, in the states (And look at that... Even in other Western countries...) rarer than gun violence. The Las Vegas sniper didn't rain U-Haul trucks down on his victim. The South Carolina church shooter didn't blow up the church during service.
Yeah, there is absolutely a point that people will kill regardless of method if that's what they want... But it's both disingenuous and willfully naive in my view to suggest that acccess, availability, and the amount of firearms in America has zero to do with it.
And let me say... I think we should also take a wider accounting beyond just our society swimming in guns to include cultural influences (Which... sorry maybe should include some soul searching in regards to our entertainment) as well as rethinking mental health outreach.
I stated earlier... Generally we are living with less violent crime across the board in the States. But we are seeing more of the mass shooting phenomenon. Everyone has their sacred cows: Guns, video games, music, film/TV etc. Something WE believe is essential to our identity we wave away as having absolutely no reasonable contribution to this issue... We all have to re-think that. It's not easy, but these events happen with a mix of contributing factors. Addressing guns' availability would be a start but also, despite mocking when some quarters look to shift the question to mental health (hypocritically so... Since these types are usually for slashing the social safety net of which public mental health outreach is a part...), yes the state of access to mental health treatment and identifying citizens that need it is another factor. Addressing cultural issues like loneliness. Indeed finding ways within our society that values freedom of expression to also admit that growing up and navigating through all of the messages and ideas in such a society can be difficult for young people being buffeted by various, often well funded forces... Yeah, we need to start examining that while balancing out our essential freedoms in some manner.
But that's all a lot less likely to happen when the response from some is going to be one that cedes the battle beforehand with attitudes that boil down to "What ya gonna do? People would kill with cars and trucks and homemade bombs too so..." especially given that where the issue is mass shootings we aren't seeing mass truck massacres despite the availability and cost of renting a large truck being within the same range if not lower than the purchase price of guns and ammo.
When the country can't go three months without a mass truck massacre or a bombing I might give the argument some credence but to my mind, when I hear that line of reasoning I just hearing very hacky political sophistry.