When will Americans see sense on gun control?
- 1966: Charles Whitman kills his wife and mother and then 14 others at the University of Texas
- 1976: Edward Allaway shoots 7 people in a library at California State University Fullerton
- 1984: James Huberty shoots dead 21 people at a McDonald’s in California
- 1986: Postal worker Pat Sherrill kills 14 people at a post office in Oklahoma
- 1989: Patrick Purdy kills 5 children and wounds 30 others at a school in Stockton, California
- 1991: George Hennard kills 23 people at a cafeteria in Texas
- 1998: Mitchell Johnson & Andrew Golden shoot dead 4 students and a teacher at a school in Arkansas
- 1999: Two students at Columbine high school kill 13 and injure 20, before killing themselves
- 2005: Jeffrey Weise kills his grandfather, his partner, a teacher, a security guard, and 5 fellow students in Minnesota
- 2006: Charles Roberts kills 5 young girls in an Amish schoolhouse at Nickel Mines
- 2007: A student kills 32 and injures dozens more at Virginia Tech university
- 2009: 13 people are killed in a mass shooting at Ford Hood military base in Texas
- 2012: 12 are killed and 58 injured in a shooting in a movie theatre in Aurora
- 2012: 26 people – 20 of them children – are shot in a school in Newtown, Connecticut
In the United States, there are an estimated 270 million private firearms. This is twice as many guns per head as the country with the next highest rate of firearms ownership on the planet which is the failed state of Yemen. Yet only about 20% of Americans actually own a gun. It’s time for the majority to insist on much tighter gun controls.