Unfortunately guns are embedded in our society. There are millions of registered weapons and many more that have been stolen or otherwise illegally possessed. For years the argument has been made that conceal/carry and more weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens—being everyone with a gun before they commit a crime—is the only way to create a safe society. The converse argument is made by many other states, and yet, in states with strict gun control, there are still mass shootings. Neither soft nor strict gun control seems to work.
While 2nd Amendment activists highlight the infrequent incidents where an armed citizen thwarted a crime, and bemoan what could have been when shootings in states with strict gun laws occur, when a mass shooting happens in a state with soft gun laws it seems lost on both sides of the aisle that those laws didn't do anything to stop the shooting either. Florida, now holding the dubious title of the site of the worst mass shooting in US history (provided you're willing to blow off the military campaign to exterminate the Sioux Nation) has conceal carry laws which helped not a single bit either preventatively or during the massacre itself.
In February, Floridians killed an open carry bill that would have made it even easier for this "law abiding citizen" to waltz in and start shooting. Should it have passed, he quite literally would have been allowed to park a few blocks away and take a brisk walk to get his blood flowing down a public street. In fact, the police would be violating his rights by stopping him for doing so right up to the second when he started shooting, thus becoming a "criminal", and the citizenry would have effectively been inviting him into the theater with open arms.
This is an easy sell to the strict gun control mind, but no more false a piece of logic than those who are soft on gun control. I don't think it can be honestly or solidly stated that strict gun laws would have prevented the shooting or the degree of its impact. A person who decides to commit a crime can easily carry guns over state lines, or otherwise get their hands on them through nefarious means. One way or another, in the United States guns are easily available and easily taken anywhere in the country regardless of law. The result is the randomness of mass shootings in states of all gun control variations that plagues the mind. The most deadly mass shootings in the US since 2000 were in Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, California, Texas, New York and Colorado. They run the gamut from soft to strict gun laws, and in fact, California, New York, Colorado and Texas are poster children for one side of the aisle or the other.
That mentality that gun control—both soft control and strict control— can solve the problem is precisely the problem. Gun control in any form is the great false conundrum facing our country today.
The only constant in all states is the 2nd Amendment's allowance of an armed citizenry, and it's the only difference between countries with low and high gun violence rates. Gun control is nothing more than a conversation about degrees of toleration for something that should not be tolerated. Whether soft or strict, keeping the conversation about guns at the level of "control" will not, cannot, and has never solved any problems. The problem is the right to bear arms, and the solution is to eliminate it from the Constitution and reshape our national paradigm about what gun safety means.