Actual facts in the gun control vs shooting debate

Larry Correia, who is the bestselling author of the "Monster Hunter International" book series and (perhaps more relevantly) was a firearms and concealed-carry instructor, owned a gun store and worked with a lot of police and military, has penned a long and detailed dissection of the gun laws and post-Sandy Hook gun control proposals. Go read the whole thing, but here's a flavour of it.

Larry's credentials:

We [the gun store] were a Title 7 SOT, which means we worked with legal machineguns, suppresors, and pretty much everything except for explosives. We did law enforcement sales and worked with equipment that is unavailable from most dealers, but that means lots and lots of government inspections and compliance paperwork. This means that I had to be exceedingly familiar with federal gun laws, and there are a lot of them. I worked with many companies in the gun industry and still have many friends and contacts at various manufacturers. When I hear people tell me the gun industry is unregulated, I have to resist the urge to laugh in their face. I was also a Utah Concealed Weapons instructor, and was one of the busiest instructors in the state.

His main points, most if not all of which are backed up with actual facts and statistics:

• Arming teachers is not crazy, as long as you don't actually mandate it; let the interested and concerned teachers train and qualify for CCW permits and you'll be just fine. Utah has CCW teachers and the world has not ended.
• Mass shooters shoot far more people if they are eventually stopped by cops rather than civilians, because cops take 5-15 minutes to arrive. He notes that nowadays when cops arrive a the scene of a shooting they go straight in and engage the shooter rather than forming a perimeter and waiting for SWAT, because the additional wait time costs too many lives.
• Mass shooters choose gun-free zones for shootings because they don't want opposition. When people fire back at them, they tend to shoot themselves because their rampage has come to an end.
• The media makes mass shooters infamous, which is likely encouraging others to become shooters and gain infamy.
• Banning various types of weapon, ammunition, magazine size or accessory makes very little difference. The term "assault weapon" in law has no relation to actual killing or wounding ability. Nearly any effective handgun or long gun is "semi automatic".
• Banning all guns deprives people of the ability to defend themselves; guns are used much more in self-defence than in offence, but the former occasions often do not result in a shot being fired. Countries that ban guns see violent (if not fatal violent) crime soar as predators know there is no effective defence against them.
• Confiscating guns from American citizens would result in a legal nightmare and any number of shootouts as you confirm in gunholders' minds that the government wants to take away all their rights and their ability to protect themselves.

Food for thought. You don't have to agree with Correia's politics and perspective to realise that he has valid points about the ineffectiveness of the gun control proposals being bandied around.