Colorado Copycat.

[Tiberius]

This is why the argument Tiberius and others make about the "black market" is a canard -- already within any market comes attempts at selling from consumer to consumer. That is inevitable.

Sorry, but the black market exists; it is not a canard. Further, my "argument" was a response to a question about whether someone could get that kind of weaponry in the UK. The answer is resoundingly yes, if you know where to look. Building sites might be used to get minor smuggled weapons, but if you want major, you have to go online.

The real question here that Tiberius and Co. should be asking (instead of bullshitting about some criminal obtaining a weapon), does gun control effectively reduce the secondary consumer-to-consumer resale market (that set includes the black market. It also includes grey zones, etc )? Is there something that will? Can this ever be solved?

How exactly am I bullshitting? I can provide you screenshots of assault rifles for sale on the Dark Web if you really want me to, but a simple Google search would reveal exactly the same thing. Hell, the BBC even reported on it earlier this year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16801382

As to your "real question"; I thought I answered that in my first post pretty well. Laws stop law-abiding citizens; they do not stop criminals. If they did, criminals wouldn't exist. Banning guns in this country has ensured that the only people with guns are the government and the criminals; neither of whom I really want to see with all the guns.

I'm not against all forms of gun control though. I think the main reason the UK doesn't have the same kinds of shootings as the US is because access to such guns is more complicated. In most mass-shootings in America, the perpetrators often don't have a criminal record; they just snap and grab as many high powered guns as they can. In the UK, the same person would do the same thing, but would be limited by what was on offer (unless as I suggested, they turn to the Dark Web). Regular criminals that want to hold up banks don't need such weaponry though, given that banks aren't allowed to use weapons either. An armed robber can get away with just as much money with a shotgun as a robber in America could armed with an assault rifle. Police in America are armed with guns; police in the UK aren't.

That all being said, my point still stands. In a planned attack (which this seems to have been, seeing as Holmes spent 4 months building his arsenal), an individual could get hold of all manner of weaponry from various illegal sources. The only reason criminals don't all have such weaponry is because (a) it's too complicated to get to be worth it, and (b) it's not needed since the populace aren't armed and neither are most of the police.

Edit: This shooting happened last year. The perpetrator killed just as many people as Holmes did, and all with a (legal) shotgun and rifle.