Secondly you attempted to support your stance by research that was done on only 200 counties over 14 years ago. This paper is nothing more then corollary drivel dressed up as research. Their findings are easily debunked, gun ownership has been steady or increasing the last 10 years and homicides have been in decline. Feel free to peruse http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats.
The AR-15 is a cool gadget. If you don't think guns are cool pieces of mechanical engineering, I suggest going to the range and firing a few.
I honestly have never known anyone who didn't tone down their anti-gun hate after having gone to the range with a knowledgeable, capable, and safe chaperone. I have taken several and everyone always had an enjoyable time, just stress the safety aspects consistently!
Although there are admittedly a lot of neckbeard libertarian types that this argument would appeal to, I think most "hackers" are interested in building things that are productive and beneficial to society, and do not impose massive societal costs. The marginal social cost of household gun ownership is in the range of $100 to $1800 per year. http://home.uchicago.edu/~ludwigj/papers/JPubE_guns_2006FINA...