[pshrynk]

I don't own a gun, because, quite frankly, it's an expensive hobby and I'd rather spend money on electronic gizmos. I just want to make the point, again, that guns are more apt to cause death because the factors involved with the kinetics of guns leads to more spots on the body being more vulnerable than with knives, etc.

The crime rates in the US are due to sociological factors, amongst them acces to guns. Also included are the multicultural make up of a very large nation, crowding in cities, economic factors, and the "cowboy" mentality that pervades society, to mention just a few.

There are not any real upswings in rampage murders in economically hard times. They are just reported more fervently and blamed on the economy at that point. As has been pointed out, the guy in NYC was tipping over the edge to rampage murder for years. Too many factors to track to give it a sound bite explanation.