A "war fought for freedom" is a long, long way from shooting innocent people at a school. Equating the two is a huge slap in the face to the vast majority of gun owners in the US who are responsible, law-abiding citizens and, while they would use their guns to defend themselves against tyranny, would never even think of using their guns to shoot an innocent person.
Ok, but why is this even a point worth making? The "difficulty" you refer to is there precisely because being a law-abiding gun owner who would still use their gun to defend against tyranny is not the same as being a criminal who uses a gun to shoot innocent people. Since they're not the same, calling it a "difficulty" that you can't take away the law-abiding citizens' guns in order to keep criminals from getting them makes no sense.
If your intent was only to take away guns from the criminals, not the law-abiding citizens, then the "difficulty" is not that the law abiding citizens view gun ownership as part and parcel of freedom. The difficulty is that of judging who is a law-abiding citizen and who is a criminal in advance, before any gun is used for anything. But, as others have posted elsewhere in this thread, the law-abiding citizens who own guns are overwhelmingly in favor of requiring people to show some evidence of being responsible law-abiding citizens before they can buy a gun, just as we require people to show evidence of being responsible drivers before we let them drive cars on public roads.
There are other countries where you don't really even know a gun owner and outside of video games or movies, entire social circles go months without even mentioning guns because they just aren't a big part of the localised zeitgeist. Completely different in the US where guns were a big part of the origin story of the nation.
Because it's a core component of the topic of this discussion thread. I think we're coming in at different angles to each other, but given what you've said here:
> law-abiding citizens who own guns are overwhelmingly in favor of requiring people to show some evidence of being responsible law-abiding citizens before they can buy a gun, just as we require people to show evidence of being responsible drivers before we let them drive cars on public roads.
I don't think we're in disagreement over some fundamental logical pathway to improvement. However, back to my original point: On this topic logic don't play, because history.
(and a powerful, entrenched lobby that leverages this emotional topic using slippery-slope, fear-of-loss-of-identity arguments).
A threat to gun ownership is equated to a threat to the freedoms fundamental to what makes the US 'the best country in the world'.
Any argument restricting gun ownership, no matter how logical or however great the weight of evidence, is up against this "the very DNA of the country" emotional position.
Gun availability has been said to be similar in the US to some other countries. Mental illness isn't limited to the US. The US' foundation is based on a war fought for freedom, using guns. That's the differentiator. (this, my apologies, papers over the requested nuances of mental illness drugs, the cost and availability of medical care, the individual and societal effects of uber-capitalism at all costs, the equating of any level of socialism to be full-on communism, the widening ideological divide and/or the decreasing tolerance for the existence of differing ideologies to one's own).
My cynical take is: Why would this incident make any difference if none of the previous incidents have? It's a harsh observation, but this is "US normal", and has been for a long time.