Less is always better, and so we should jump on board with efforts that will reduce them.

At the same time, it was laid out in the Federalist Papers (No. 46) that the intention of our Second Amendment is to protect against government tyranny. To summarize the American philosophy: School shootings and gun violence are awful, but the possibility of a genocide or enslavement is worse.

I'm not enough of an expert in any field to speculate which is objectively better, however I've always personally believed that the U.S. will be safer when viewed in a longer timescale compared to our neighbors.

Is there some minimal number of fatal auto accidents that's acceptable? My position is that we clearly have shown that this country cannot be trusted with personal possession of motor vehicles, so let's all calmly proceed towards no longer having them around.

But there ARE actions taken to prevent accidents. Anti-texting campaigns, DUI enforcement, street planning efforts, safer cars, signage and reflective material on roads. These things have undoubtedly saved some lives.

But when it comes to guns we just throw up ours hands and say whaddya gonna do.

There are actions taken to prevent mass shootings. Background checks, mandatory waiting periods, gun free zones, banning certain guns.

Stop acting like there are no laws about guns, as that's ridiculous. Funny how in Parkland and it seems even with the YouTube office the police were aware of threats these people posed and did nothing. Seems like there should be more scrutiny put on the police, instead of a push to rely on them to defend the public; something they aren't even legally obligated to do.

Now this I can get behind.

Car companies fought against seat belts.

hear, hear!

My position is governments can't be trusted with prohibiting citizens from owning firearms, so let's keep them around.

My question: How the hell are you going to use your hand gun against a lot of pretty well trained soldiers with much better guns?

Even in this very unlikely case your gun is going to be very useless. Maybe you could shoot yourself.

The down side of having guns in many (dumb/unstable) people's hands is pretty well discussed already.

This, and the "but the government has nukes" argument, assumes the only scenarios are "no resistance" or "all-out war". In reality there's likely a step function where even the possibility of some armed resistance would go a long way in dissuading a would-be tyrannical government, especially in this age where anyone can instantly broadcast video across the globe.

That assumes a large enough portion of the population that wants to resist owns guns. I wish more liberals (especially groups likely to be persecuted) owned guns for this reason.

That ignores the psychological factor and assumes those soldiers will just follow the order. I don't think that would be the case, particularly as they're the type of people that typically own multiple firearms personally.

Beyond that, it is like people have never heard of guerilla warfare. The United States is a vast area and lots of it is lightly inhabited. It would be very difficult to suppress an insurrection.

Wooolllvvveeerrrinnneesss!!!