If you don't blame guns...what do you blame?

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I agree, that thinking that guns could be involved or somehow related, into homicides done by guns, is an too easy thought.

From my opinion its non praying, first person shooter video games playing and homosexuals feminists that play Dungeons and Dragons in the sewers, that must be responsible for it. And drug store workers, that sell condom to teenagers without bugging them.

I had to say "other" because you don't allow enough options or the ability to pick more than one.

Poverty is not an excuse for violence.

Mental illness is not much of an excuse, but our failure to address the issue is worth some focus. Much attention needs to be put on meds that are proven to actually WORSEN people and make them act out violent tendencies while medicated.

Government?

Certainly poor parenting is a contributor. Your view towards society and others has much to do with what you are taught as you are growing up.

Violence in the media bears some blame, but saying violent movies or video games is the cause is BS. To a disturbed mind, they can be a factor. To a sane mind, they have no real effect. The most you can make an issue about is that it desensitizes viewers to the horror of violent acts...making people more tolerant when they do occur because we are "acclimated" to them in our society. A violent crime in a place with lots of crime gets little attention while in a place with low crime rates people are often shocked and outraged.

I blame the individuals who use those guns to kill people. While different social factors come into play, they affect all of us, not just criminals...and they alone bear the full weight of their choices, no one else. If some moron pulls a gun to hurt or kill me or my family, I have every right to fire back first...governmental policies be damned.

There is no poll option for "All of the Above".

However, the final cause is the pull of the trigger on a loaded firearm - plain and simple. Usually, a murder is committed by a person who has decided that killing someone is the only solution to a problem.

Granted, when someone else has already demonstrated the desire to commit violence, is an obviously direct and immediate threat, and your choices are to either kill that person or allow let that person to kill others - maybe many others - the only reasonable choice is to kill.

However, when the target poses no direct and immediate threat, and has not even expressed the desire to kill, then killing that person is just plain wrong.

I blame just about everything for inspiring violence, but I blame only the killer for the murders that he or she commits.

... and firearms are not the only weapons that a killer can use ...

Repeatedly studies have demonstrated that the strongest link with violent crime is income inequality. Not the absolute level of poverty, but rather the size of the gap between have and have not.

In countries the world over, both in rich countries and poor ones, the rate of violent crime is strongly tied to that gap. Whether this is causative remains to be seen; we have yet to see a country take a determined step towards closing the income inequality gap, and there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that violent crime is not rising in lock step with income inequality in the United States.

But notwithstanding the trend, violent crime is still most strongly linked to income inequality.

Now, if only some "tough on crime" times would think proactively about crime prevention, rather than thinking reactively about punishment, we might see some progress.

Fnord - I think that just may be the most eloquently I've ever seen someone make that point. Props.

The biggest driver of gun violence in this country is poverty and the war on drugs which are inseparably tied themselves.

There are issues with how we deal with mental health in this country and unfortunately some lone wolf nuts fall through the cracks but the mentally ill aren't any more violent or dangerous than anyone, these massacres are just obsessed about and glorified much more extensively in media now. Violent crime has been falling for decades, we live in a safer world now than we ever have but you would never know that from the media.