Unfortunately for us Canadians, we live in a country where if you pick up any item for the purpose of defending ourselves, it becomes and illegal weapon, even if that item is a pen, or a rock, or a little Swiss army knife.
I happen to own a store in British Columbia, and recently went through one of the scariest situations I have ever been in, where two men in ski masks came into my store, and luckily only tried to steal my ATM, with no success they left immediately, But the problem was... that I called the police instantly when I saw the masks, assuming they would be listening, but I was actually put on hold for 10 minutes, before actually being asked "police, fire or ambulance" and it would be another roughly 3 hours to see a police officer walk through my door. We live in a country where the criminals are the only ones able to get weapons and possess them, and the average citizens are penalized for picking up a pen in self defense. if someone comes into my store and tries to rob me, I would hope I had the opportunity to defend myself, unfortunately the police and government expects me and others to get on our knees, do as they say and beg for my life... it is honestly disheartening when I heard the police officer telling me to get insurance when I asked "so what am I supposed to do about these people?" (talking about the time my store was broken into, and various shoplifters) I also I have to tell you guys, it's a computer store, one of the hardest places to insure in my area, when you are able to it is extremely expensive compared to other retail businesses.
I do not honestly think banning firearms will fix anything, people wanting to commit a crime will ultimately end up committing the crime any way they can (the only thing that comes to mind right now is London's knife crime rise in the uk) and like i said above criminals will still have firearms, it's law abiding citizens this is harming... not criminals. Thank you for the post, your article is very refreshing compared to the other articles I have read on the same shooting.