Jay I think it completely flew over your head that I wasn't arguing the gun control laws have necessarily had an effect. Reading comprehension.
The gun control laws are a single variable which just doesn't prove anything one way or the other. They don't provide any conclusive evidence.
By the way your ANECDOTE doesn't mean shit. Gun owner stories prove absolutely nothing. I could get you 10 stories of relatives who don't have guns, and none of them have ever been assaulted. Does that prove anything? NO!
If you want meaningful data I would direct you to the Department of Justice website. There is reams and reams of crime data there, you could waste days looking at it.
I didn't ask BigRed for a cite, I asked him to link to these articles instead of copying them to the board.
1) He loves these guys, he should be directing click traffic to their sites
2) It's borderline copyright violation, you could easily get a nasty letter from one of these sites one of these days.
If you want cold hard data follow this link:
Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime & Justice Data Online
You can cross reference the data those tables come up with against gun laws and you'll see theres very little correlation between lax gun laws & crime or strict gun laws and crime.
New Hampshire is safe, but it's not cause the gun laws are relaxed, as other states with relaxed laws are in the top 5 most dangerous.
So while this VA Tech case is no reason to yell for stricter gun laws, it's also no reason to yell for more guns.