Why Mass Shootings Are Rare in Germany

I could make this a 300-line essay, but it really comes down to three essential factors, which won't work in the US....to the degree that Germans use them.

First, this gun-license business.  While there might be six-million license weapons within Germany (82-million)....after you've been through this 'test of sorts'.....knowing full well that that the license could easily be taken, you don't go and do stupid things.  With just one single police report of you intimidating or threatening your neighbor.....the local cops can revoke your license in a matter of minutes, and judges won't go and flip it back unless there is hard evidence that supports your situation.  You can go and talk to any German hunter or gun-enthusiast, and they will be extremely serious about their situation and behavior. 

Second, Germany is totally serious about nut-cases.  It really doesn't take much for some judge to hold you....force you in for a review of your mental state....then confirm you to a mental facility (permanently). 

Third, this odd relationship between behavioral control drugs, doctors prescribing them, and threats.  If you have some German adult who has delusions, and the German doctor decides some new drug will control this.....then that's the end of a potential gun-licensed individual.  You can look across at the majority of US mass murders, and how legal/illegal drugs fit into the profile of the guy, and if he'd been in Germany....that's the end of his access to a gun-license or weapon. 

But if you attempted to take the three methods described here and import them into the US?  All will be met with various arguments....some in favor of the Constitutional right to a weapon (even if you are mentally insane)...some in favor of the mentally insane to be free and wandering the streets.  And some will argue that the legal/illegal drug situation cannot be controlled. 

I won't go and suggest that Germany is 'free' of mass murders, but once you use this three-method 'trick', it really decreases the various acts of violence.  Today?  Well....you have to worry more about knife attacks in urban centers of Germany.....than gun-play.  That's a whole other story and more difficult problem to resolve.