Gunman kills 27+ people at a church in San Antonio metro area

Nearly all the mass shootings in this country over the last 30 years have been committed with semiauto or automatic rifles. Or a shotgun.
It's not that hard to connect the dots.

We have a GUN problem in this country that our global allies don't.

Why is that???

 

AB, there have been 974 deaths over the last 50 years in the U.S, by way of mass killings. (reflects 4 or more murdered by one individual.)

That's 3 years of Philly homicides from 2013-2016, alone.
Most used 9mm's obtained illegally.

It's not a gun problem. It really is (blood) on the hands of the killers.

We'll have to examine America's culture of violence, including the movies Hollywood produce, mental illness, indoctrinations, gand culture, etc...Look, there's too many guns in circulation, so you're best to take an alternate route, otherwise indeed, nothing will change.

 

An AR-15 is good for home defense. But it is not the best choice. A higher caliber like a 7.62mm/.308Winchester, .338 Lapua, 300 Blackout or even a lever-action rifle that fires the same caliber as a handgun (.357 magnum, .44 magnum, .9mm can extend the range of handgun ammunition) are better choices. A shotgun is devestating at close range. Using rifled slugs will give you longer distance but it isn't the best choice when used as sniping round. A rifled slug, even a magnum slug could barely hit a target at 25 yards. A 10mm has the power equivalent to a .41 magnum and can be used as both a hunting and defensive weapon in a handgun or a carbine.

For myself, I would rather have a Springfield Armory M1A Scout Squad rifle in .7.62mm/308 Winchester than an AR-15 if I had only one long gun.

 

308 packs too much muzzle energy for home defense IMO. Unless you live in the dessert. The extra power and penetration puts more civilians at risk. That round was made to buck the wind.

A don't understand why the term "short range" is used for a shotgun in the context of home defense. If you are within 35 yards of the business end of a shotgun you're one of the unluckiest men on earth. You lose.
I'm pretty accurate with non rifled slugs at 20 yards. The use of buck shot just gives another leg up. I'd rather use buck #1 for less penetration and more rounds of shot than 00, and of course less penetration makes it safer than a slug. Especially if others are in your home.

A rifle that fires a 357 round sounds like a good choice.

 

So now we know the guy WAS mentally ill. My question is do our allies take better care of their mentally ill? I know which way I'm willing to bet.

 

Quite a few companies make a lever-action rifle for .357 magnum. Most notably the Henry Repeating Arms Big Boy line, Winchester, Uberti Arms. Marlin had one but it was discontinued because of a number of problems with the rifle.
If I were living in the city or in a nearby municipality, I would use a shotgun.

 

I'm assuming you got your stats from the recent The Washington Post article on mass shootings.
Glad to read you believe over 950 people killed in mass shootings in 3 years is statistically insignificant.

You really believe the U.S. has a violence problem, a 'bad' people problem, and not a gun problem??
We're more violent than a continent like Europe that started two global wars in the last century that killed nearly 80 million people combined??
Americans are more inherently violent than the Brits, Germans, Russians, Italians, Slavs and the French??

What do you think would happen if we flooded every European nation with enough guns to more than equal their population??
Do you suspect their homicide rate would dramatically increase??

As for how you count mass shootings, it depends how the stat is defined.
The Gun Violence Archive
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
has been compiling gun violence stats since 2013,(it's odd there's no comprehensive federal database that tracks gun violence,) and says we've been averaging between 12,000 and 15,000 gun deaths a year. And it's not that easy to casually say half were from suicide since they don't include them except in their end of year tally. However they do include murder/suicide.

The GVA also says we've averaged about 300-350 mass shootings a year, with about 400 deaths a year from those mass shootings.

Guns are designed to kill people. Not hammer nails or blend milkshakes. When you introduce firearms into any population, you're going to increase the homicide rate.
The BBC quoted a stat that 60% of all homicides in America are committed with firearms. That's a gun problem, not a violence one. You're providing irrational people the easiest and most efficient way to kill another human being, which is a gun.

The only real difference between the United States and the rest of the world is the amount of guns we have in this country.