The article talks about the state of New Hampshire having some of the lowest homicide rates in the USA even though it has some of the most liberal gun laws in the USA. It could have gone on to mention that homicide in New Hampshire is actually 20% lower than in Australia.

Dear Geoff of Perth.

Please read the following

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause

This shameful 'big pharma is out to kill us all' conspiracy theory crap, is also doing the rounds over at that logic free zone, the improperly named 'Australian vaccination network'... And needs to be called out for the rubbish that it is.

Regards,

Someone who understands the difference between correlation and causation

Why do these young men perceive that the answer to their personal problems is to strike back and harm others to make their grand final departure from life?

How did they come to believe that?

What examples and modelling were they presented with? By whom?

Why were there no cries for help prior? Or are the cries of boys and young men disregarded as in "Harden up young'un you are a man"?

Examples of questions that might be posed but never answered. A political knee-jerk response is easier and puts a lid on things better not asked.

Interesting fact, gun homicides as a percentage of all homicides in the U.S have been been on a downward trend since 1993 while deaths from edged weapons, blunt force and other assaults have remained static over that period.
Assaut weapons account for about 1% of all crimes where a gun is used and they make up about 8% of the 200 million guns in the hands of the American public.

I think you're looking at it the wrong way.

There should be MORE guns in the USA, not less.

Make it mandatory for everybody to "bear arms" at all times and let them "thin out their herd" for a while.

No surprise that gun homicides in the USA have been trending down, considering that gun ownership has also been trending down - by one-third since the mid-1990s. See
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/31/politics/gun-ownership-declining/index.html.

Australia has never had a gun massacre since Howard stood up to the gun freaks in 1996. America gets them in monotonous succession because nobody has stood up to the gunnies. For a chronology of US massacres see
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map.

Evil individuals have massacred their fellow-Americans because there are guns ready to hand do it with. Elsewhere it takes a bit of effort for scum like the Newtown killer to get hold of a gun that will put a bullet through an engine block 100 times a minute.

For the way gun homicides follow gun ownership between countries see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list.
Outliers are mainly corrupt countries like Mexico where those who own the guns own the government.

Sure correlation isn't causation, but quacking like a duck, looking like a duck and walking like a duck do correlate strongly with being a duck.