agentorange, you asked,
Very easy access to guns:
But remember these shootings are in fact very very rare; they just make a lot of noise:
If you're interested, here is the web site. It's about school shootings, but the myths probably apply to all such crimes:
Ten Myths about School Shootings

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"We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border,” -- John McCain, in an ABC News interview

I've often wondered though that the issue of school-shootings isn't necessarily a gun issue, but more a high-school sociological one. I am only able to base my observations on what I see depicted in every single American movie set in a high school, which is that it is a hierarchical structure, which seems to be the one type of its kind in the world, whereby you have your "jocks"; cheerleaders (the Captain of who invaribaly has to date the captain of the football team); the nerds who have to get picked on by the aforementioned jocks; "stoners", etc etc. It seems that US high school is all about competition and beating your classmates, whether this be academically (in which case you risk being beaten up or ridiculed), winning the title of Prom Queen, etc. There seems to be a prevailing culture of survival of the fittest at its most animalistic and primitive form, and after a while it seems that some poor suffering kid snaps. Is it any coincidence that the Columbine shooters were members of an ostracized student group (nerdy, sci-fi geek types) and actively sought to shoot the jocks? Does anyone perhaps think there might have been subjective bullying lead up to that? Like I said, I don't think it is a gun issue at all. Guns just happen to be the mechanisms by which these kids feel the need to vent their anger and frustration.