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).
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.