@GaP42 - You dump on guns but don't acknowledge the times when having a gun saved someone's life. I personally knew a fellow who came home one night and was immediately approached by a gun-wielding person who demanded their money. But B. was legally carrying a concealed weapon. When the perp's attention was diverted to B.'s wife on the other side of the car, B. shot and killed the perp.
Why is this anecdote important? Because it was relegated to the back pages of the newspaper. It was because a black man shot another black man in order to protect his wife from a twitchy gun-carrying junkie. It wasn't headline-worthy. And it didn't fit the "moral outrage" model through which so many newspapers filter their headlines. Nobody could get worked up about putting down a human animal.
People talk about our "Wild West" mentality sometimes. But the Wild West in the USA was actually very polite. Folks KNEW that if you acted out, at least half-a-dozen guns could come out to take care of you and your silly ideas. Now the perps think they can get away with anything. And you rail on about limiting this or that regarding guns. Don't you understand? Criminals already don't agree with laws in general anyway. What in the name of the nine infernal levels of Hell makes you think they will care about your silly limitations?
People don't understand the concept of negotiation. You can only negotiate with someone when that someone realizes he CAN'T just take what he wants and get away with it. The only way to negotiate with a barbarian is to clunk him hard enough on the head that he HAS to put down whatever weapon he was using.
Whole NATIONS use the concept of mutually-assured destruction to prevent the use of nuclear armament. They don't bomb the bejeezus out of us because they know that before their missiles land, ours can be launched to bomb the bejeezus out of them. You are raving against the individual situation that reflects the same situation operating at the highest national levels. It is only at the point where your adversary KNOWS that raw force isn't going to work that you can hope to reach a point of behavioral change.
If you want to blame someone or something for this, blame evolution. We evolved from saurian ancestors who hunted their prey and controlled their territory to assure survival. Our violence comes from our genes. We have found ways to control that violence, so we have partially controlled our heritage - but only partly.
