I hardly advocated an insurgency. Guns should never, ever, have been legal for private ownership in the first place, in my opinion. OF COURSE it would be chaos trying to get rid of them all at once but it can be phased out.
I didn't say that you advocated an insurgency, only that you advocate policies that would inevitably give rise to one if implemented, i.e. the idea that people who choose to own guns should be forced to surrender them. There are at least 300 million guns in private hands in this country, and most of them would
not be surrendered voluntarily, whether you envision an all-at-once confiscation or something more gradual.
People do not need to own guns; there are thousands and thousands of tragic accidents involving registered guns because people don't understand them and shouldn't have them in the first place.
Actually, the number of gun accidents is around 600 per year, and falling. Gun accidents involving criminals and others unlawfully in possession of guns make up a significant portion of that number.
People don't need to consume alcohol, either, and alcohol causes about 100,000 deaths/yr in this country, far more than guns (and many gun deaths are alcohol related). But we don't outlaw the responsible consumption of alcohol, because (1) Puritanical nannyism is repugnant to Enlightenment ideals, and (2)
Prohibition doesn't work. It didn't work for alcohol, it isn't working for drugs (marijuana is easier to get in a city than prescription foot powder, despite its consumable nature and 80+ years of harsh laws), and it wouldn't work for guns, which could be smuggled into the country disguised as a routine cocaine shipment--not to mention the third of a BILLION guns already in civilian hands here, that aren't going to go away. Lawful gun ownership rates are going up, not down, and have been for many years.
No, we'll keep our guns, thanks. If you don't like them, don't own them, and I'll work with you on addressing criminal misuse (background checks, safety education, etc.), but stay out of our gun safe, please.
The mere presence of a gun can escalate an ordinary conflict into a tragic one. This guy should never have been able to get his hands on a gun and the fact that he did, whether legally or illegally, means they are far too easy to obtain and an innocent woman is dead because of it.
Is heroin too easy to obtain in this country? Maybe we should ban it or something...