I will have to disagree with those who say that banning handguns is the solution. The real problem, as I see it, is the culture of corruption we have that says violence is perfectly acceptible and/or even God ordained. Moreover, not only is violence heartily approved, it all too often goes unpunished or even "justified" by its perpetrators.
British police kill an innocent law abiding Brazilian. White police in the USA kill innocent blacks on a weekly basis in the USA. There was violence in Montreal. Perhaps it is no coincidence that all three countries invaded Iraq and have killed multiples of thousands of innocents with pundits making every excuse possible to "justify" these crimes. Bush proclaimed that he was instructed by God to invade Iraq. Later on he said that he would do it again even if he knew that there were no WMD anywhere. Thus, our society, like that of its supporters, feel that death, violence, crimes, are perfectly OK as long as God can somehow be enlisted to 'justify' it.
Banning handguns won't solve the problem as they have always been in existence in the USA since its inception and have never been thought to be a public hazard. This does not mean that we are a society free of historical violence. But years of Old West violence and public lynchings came to a halt a long time ago as we became more enlightened. The problem today is that we are again succumbing to ideas that were thought to be extinct a long time ago but which, somehow, have found their way back into the public mentality.
Violence is evil and there can be no justification or excuse for it. We must develop a culture that condemns violence and prejudice and replace it with the thought that tact and diplomacy is best in order to deal with difficulties.