As I've been thinking about this as the week has gone on, I've realized that the biggest part of the overall problem is the love of guns that is so deeply ingrained in American culture and society.
I've gone on record in this thread as saying that a total ban on guns is neither practical nor necessary. It's also unconstitutional. But just for kicks, I've tried to do a "what if" in my mind about a total ban on guns. I couldn't do it because I couldn't get past the fact that even with a total ban on guns, the demand would still be there.
Some of the national discussion on gun control this week has mentioned other countries in which guns have either been totally banned, or greatly restricted. Depending on the source of information, results in those countries have either been "very effective" or "completely ineffective" The difference in the characterization of these results varies almost entirely due to the agendas of the persons or groups providing and interpreting the data.
But I don't think we can look at other countries and compare their results to what our results would be because it's not going to be an apples-to-apples comparison. I don't think that there's any other country in which the love and need for guns so so deeply ingrained as it is in America.
A guy I work with, in his late 40's, moved here to the U.S. from the Netherlands around 3 years ago, and we discussed this briefly the other day. He just doesn't understand the gun culture here in the U.S., and why gun owners are so deeply passionate about their absolute right and need to own guns.
Back on point: that's a big part of the problem, one that really hasn't been touched upon in the national discussion. Why do American's hold on to the Second Amendment's "right to bear arms" as such a sacred and inalienable right as we do? What, if anything, can or should be done to move away from our NEED to have guns from an inalienable right to "just" a privilege (as it is in most of the rest of the civilized world)?