Both England and Japan have some of the tightest gun control laws as well as some of the lowest gun related homicide rates (Ballaro). The United State's homicide rates are twenty times greater than England and Wales, ten times greater than France and Germany, and only exceeded by a few Latin American countries (Harwood).

	Proponents of gun control laws also cite school shootings as point for the need of more and tougher gun control legislation. In 1966 twenty-five year old ex-Marine and college student Charles Whitman fired a sawed-off shotgun from a tower on the University of Texas campus killing fourteen and wounding thirty-one. In 1999 seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed twelve classmates and a teacher and wounded two dozen others at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. After the Columbine shooting President Bill Clinton set up a task force to study school violence. Congress tightened restrictions on purchases at gun shows (where the students purchased the weapons used). Many schools installed metal detectors and security cameras, hired armed guards, and initiated zero-tolerance policies (Driscoll). A thirty-two year old man killed and wounded over a dozen girls in an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in 2006 (Ballaro). In September of that year a fifty-three year old man killed a female student at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado after he took several other students hostage and sexually assaulted them (Driscoll).

	In April of 2007 the worst school shooting in United States history occurred at Virginia Tech. A troubled college student named Hui Cho killed thirty-three people and wounded over a dozen others (Bowman). Today work is being done to prevent people with a history of mental illness to buy guns because Hui Cho was allowed to purchase a Glock handgun even though he had voluntarily stayed at a mental heath facility (Ballaro). In 2008 a mass shooting occurred at the Northern Illinois University where seven people including the gunmen were killed. Seventeen others were wounded. In the 2005 to 2006 school year the National Center for Educational Statistics reported twenty-one homicides of children under the age of eighteen and 136,500 other violent crimes on school campuses (Driscoll). Of the fourteen worst school shootings in world history in the past century, one half have occurred in the United States (Ballaro). Several laws have been enacted to help to reduce gun violence among youth and at schools including the Youth Handgun Safety Act and the Gun-Free School Act, which mandates a minimum one-year expulsion for possessing a firearm of other weapon on school property (Driscoll).

	Much of the gun control reform that has been enacted has become ineffective. In 1994 the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was created banning various types of assault weapons, but was allowed to lapse in 2004 (Lee). High-powered weapons create a public safety crisis. Gun crime declined because of the assault weapon ban from the 1990's to early 2000's. 