Most Americans do, as they do with other causes of death. I Certainly live with the nearly 50% DROP in gun-related homicides over the last 20+ years. The control of handguns, which you seem to imply is the means to reduce gun-deaths by some tolerable level, does not seem feasible. Such a cheme would be tantamount to a national registry in a country quite capable of quickly and efficiently evading prohibitionist measures. I say prohibitionist because elements within the gun control outlook Will immediately move to greater restrictions, up to and including confiscation and blanket ciminalization (the latter Always a feature in any prohibition). Examples of this can be found in CA, and have been posted here. In the event, such a scheme may run against the Constitution, and would be unworkable.
As has or will be stated here, some states have had such registries with no convincing long-term causal relationship to gun-crime rates. Usually, registries are passed to prevent certain races and ethnicities from acquiring guns; NYC's "Sullivan Laws" were passed during a wave of anti-Italian sentiment, esp. when Irish ethnic groups (some with ties to organized crime) felt threatened by comparable Italian groups. Most of the rest (north or south) stem from post-Reconstruction models enacted in the South. They are quite elitist even within dominant European control: Sylvester Stallone (a big fund-raising favorite with the Bradys) decries gun proliferation, but has a difficult to obtain concealed carry permit and a number of handguns listed on a CA "registry." Of course Diane Feinstein famously carried concealed for years. The Mediamatters outfit (no friend to the Second) used armed personnel to transfer large sums of cash, probably in violation of D.C.'s gun laws.
States have the powers to regulate the manner of carry, and I support that. I also support reasonable training where CC OR public-carry is in effect. I also support a univeral BG check for the U.S., assuming the interstate commerce clause allows such. This CAN be done in the individual states, but the gun-control outlook has no real presence in most states, and is otherwise pre-occupied with Beltway-generated regulations and restrictions, hoping its chief power source, MSM, will serve as a "movement." (At present MSM is certainly amping up its game, hoping to light something off, but we've seen this before.)
The best approach to this "problem" is to step back from the narrow, headline-grabbing doctrines of gun control and prohibition and ask:
JUST WHAT PROBLEMS ARE WE SOLVING?
1). Is it the schoolyard spectaculars which are driven by CelebroPunks who know a little immortaliy when they see it, in a culture which is slavish to celebrity more than it is to money? If so, these mass-murders account for a tiny % of gun-homicides a year. THIS CelebroPunk style is what drives the hateful gun-control rhetoric in DU and the U.S.
2). Is it the mournful murmur of the battlefield we call the Inner Cities? Perhaps, but this is NOT what causes GD to go into "Guns-Dicks" mode. Said another way, if mass murder dropped from -2.5 events/yr to, say, once every 2.5 years, would MSM resume pumping the gas for bans; would the owners of DU continue to allow a general blow out in GD; would most Americans give a flying fuck? The answer to this question goes a LONG WAY to clarifying the "issue of guns" as a public health/safety model ormjust another culture war.
3). Is it truly about crime rates? If so, it Must be recognized these rates have fallen during a period of massive gun availability expansion, and a great liberalization of gun laws. This should behoove anyone to ask WHAT HAS CAUSED these gun-crime rates to fall; i.e., it may not be about guns in the end.
We all need to step back and define problems, see what works, and make plausible proposals.
Thanks for your patience.
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