As for point 1 in your comment, this is what the Police are for.
My .02
The problem is...things like *home invasions *assault/robbery *rape
Those all happen in a split second, without time to call the police. Even "if" there was time to call the police, the time to respond, and arrive on scene...is typically waaaaaaaay too late.
Sidenote...I was in law enforcement before switching fields into computers..so yes I will be biased.
I grew up around guns. I grew up in a time when, the father in many house holds had at least one gun. My dad had a few, he participated in target competitions, had many trophies. Taught me safety and handling of a firearm when I was a little kid. My neighbor was an avid hunter and target shooter. He easily had over 30 guns in his "man cave". Many guys "collected" guns. Nothing "odd" was thought about it. It was a hobby. Some people collected baseball cards, some people collected stamps, some people collected antique things, some people with more money collected bikes, motorcycles, cars...and guns.
It's easy for many of you who are in other countries where owning firearms isn't as widespread as it is here in the US, and speak negatively about us Americans. Throw around blanket stereotypes that Americans are a bunch of rootin' tootin' Yosemite Sams in the wild old west. Make fun of Americans who live down south with a "drawl" in their speech...."Murica...yeah". Like you've read the term "redneck" and now that's a stereotype of the entire country here.
Lots of facts skews things. You see all these "facts" fly around. A large percentage of Americans own guns, yes. But you see these "facts"..these high numbers, well..it's skewed a bit. Many of them count suicides. Someone wants to off themselves...they'll find a way. Happen to own a gun, so there it is..quick and easy. If they didn't have a gun, they'd find another way. Just as unpleasant cleaning up a mess after a forearm slashing as it is a small caliber bullet to the head.
We also have inner city gang problems. EVERY SINGLE MORNING on the news we hear them talk about 2 - 4 murders in our capitol city here in Connecticut USA. Or 2 of the other old "has been" dilapidated cities. Usually out on the streets. Gangs taking each other out. They get those guns illegally..they're under aged kids. We also have a couple of really old cities with large "projects"...such as old areas of Detroit..that throw huge numbers of gang related deaths into our national average. It's like a battlezone up there.
Totally different angle to look at things, we have to deal with a whole new way that people deal with things. We have kids now who are sooo socially challenged...they "lash out"..and when they do, it's not good. I don't know what it is...I see many people blame it on video games, I don't. But I think the whole "social media" thing has changed the way todays youth handles stress. Years ago, boys would get ****** at each other of something..we'd have a fist fight outside the school, settle it, and later that day we'd be playing together. These days, kids can't deal with each other face to face, so they go keyboard commando over social media until one of them snaps! Granted...the Las Vegas guy wasn't a product of the millenium...he was 64..so somethings different here. But I blame many of the other tragedies on how poorly todays youth deal with stress. Sandy Hook for example..that kid was..a kid, and very..very socially challenged.
We will see changes in the gun laws in our country from this incident. Before earlier this week, 99% of people didn't know what a "bump stock" was. Now that this guy used bump stocks on several semi-auto rifles to rain bullets almost like a full automatic weapon...I'll be a pint of Guinness that we'll see cheap mods such as a bump stock become illegal. That mod that quietly grew in recent popularity slipped past the radar of gun legislation. Because of a technicality...the laws were written around modifying the trigger mechanism to be able to rapid fire more than 1 round per pull of the trigger. A "bump stock" technically still keeps it 1x round per 1x pull of the trigger..technically it's still a semi automatic. But..we still from the receiving end of things..it's much akin to a full automatic.
We have already seen gun legislation change things in recent years. For example..in my state, you cannot have higher than a 10 round capacity magazine. I live in a state that has stricter than average gun laws. I don't mind that. I actually support it. To me, a gun is a privilege, not a right. I believe strongly that more thorough background checks should be done, and that we need to open up medical records to allow background checks for guns to parse any info that is related to mental/psychological issues. And I believe that should open up to include the entire household. A prime example...I'll point to the Sandy Hook school shooting just several years ago. That kid had a lifelong problem of mental issues, and going to a psychologist. His mom was an avid shooter..she had quite a collection of guns. She (amongst others)...paid the ultimate price for her poor decision.
I can peel back through countless mass shootings in our country..and illustrate that the shooter should not have been able to obtain guns, due to circumstances such as they had mental issues and had been seeing a psych, or, they had prior "marks" on their records due to other things. And the background checks either just didn't happen, things fell through the cracks, or..background checks aren't allowed to reach into medical records such as mental issues. IMO that needs to change.
