I don't think that this is a US only problem and strict gun control will not take away all of the problems. It is not a silver bullet. Last year ( Alphen aan de Rijn, 9th of April 2011 ), there was a shooting in the Netherlands (7 deaths). You probable never heard of it since you don't live in Europe. I do think that this is part of the problem. The US is a large country (federation of states), while the EU is a federation of smaller countries. If something happens in the US, we hear it as "a shooting in the US". If something happens in the EU, you hear for example "a shooting in France". In this case, the size of the country does matter.

Anyway, for the little country of the Netherlands it was a huge blow. We have strict gun control and to apply for a license you need to be in perfect mental health. Also, the process of getting a license involves getting a good gun safe and due to bureaucracy you have to wait for at least a year before you have a license. In theory this makes it pretty much impossible for nuts to obtain guns legally, but the guy who went on the killing spree had 5 licenses, even tough he was under treatment at a psychiatrist. As the dutch do when something doesn't go the way we want it, we changed the laws to be even more strict and introduced more moments to check if the holder of the license is sane. (Personally, I think this was a good thing given this situation)

What I am trying to say, if you have a nut who wants to kill somebody, he will find a weapon, be it a gun or a knife, maybe even a chair. You can kill with pretty much anything. However, you should make it as hard as possible to let him obtain a gun, because guns make killing too easy. And I think that the problem of the US is exactly that. If you make gun access too easy, everybody will have a gun and other than making murder easier, you also have social insecurities. You never know who has a gun, so I would personally be very cautious in the US and never feel quite safe. I know that in some parts of the US guns are a necessary evil, but that does not mean that guns should be rampant in the country.