He's right though. There is nothing wrong in having a handgun.
Automatic weapons and the American gun culture are what's wrong here.
there is - if that gun is in the wrong hands. That's where the problem is - how do you determine which hands are right and wrong for holding a gun? I don't have an issue with people having guns, I have an issue with mentally unstable people having access to those ... and the real issue is, it's virtually impossible to determine that.
Medicine, and more so psychology, are not exact sciences but are mostly based on a professional's best educated guess. So, while it may be easy to spot the naked guy in the crowd acting all crazy and shit and certify him and keep him away from guns, it's virtually impossible to determine who the mentally unstable - mind you not ill but unstable - people are who are likely to just snap one day and commit a mass shooting. The pressures of life altogether make it even more difficult as they can built up and up in seemingly "normal" people when one day even something as mundane as being cut in line can make you snap and do things you normally wouldn't.
It's this tendency of unstable people to overreact to simple things that make easy access to guns so dangerous - you honestly think this guy had such a big issue with his mother that it couldn't be solved in a normal way but he had to shoot her and along with 20+ other people? I doubt so but I guess it all points to him seeing it that way at least in that moment in time ... and the readily available guns sure didn't make things difficult for him.
--------
and I agree that in America the issue is very different than what you have in Canada namely due to the diff in culture/mindset of people here. There are plenty of guns in canada w/o such massacres taking place on a regular basis, so it's not just availability of guns that is the problem here but it sure doesn't make things any better and am yet to see a country where easy access to guns has led to reducing senseless shootings or crime in general.
But that's the thing - the combo of wide gun access and the wrong mindset is what turned America into a war-zone with lots of scared people running around, with finger on the trigger, fooling themselves that somehow that makes them more masculine, more independent, makes them better equipped to "defend their life and property", and somehow gives them more freedom. The statistics of reality is that none of that is really the case - I mean how often does having a gun saves one's life? In movies, all the time, in real life, it's virtually useless. All this, however, just makes it easier for a gun to fall into the wrong hands or somebody get accidentally shot as a result of careless use/handling of those guns by unqualified people - the stats for these are pretty telling.
So, considering how the circumstances in Canada and the US differ in terms of mindset/mentality of the people, readily available guns may not be an issue for canada but they are an issue here with tragic consequences.