I live in Missouri, ground zero for gun nuts. I own a single pistol, a .380. I have to pick up rent sometimes and also carry bullion to and from the bank. Very rare do I even carry it. The guys I work with occasionally run out into the woods and mince about pretending to be Seal Team 6 or Rambo or whatever. Often enough they spend thousands on ammo and new weapons just to fire away aimlessly and brag about that one long range group they managed. Meanwhile none of them have decent insurance for their families and half are on food stamps, I ask about college savings for their children and get blank stares.

I am a gun owner and was rated "expert" with the M-1 rifle in the Army. Nevertheless, I believe that all firearms , the primary purpose of which is to kill human beings, should be banned to the civilian population. That includes all automatic weapons of any kind, assault rifles. and all pistols. "Open carry" and "concealed carry" should be prohibited except for police officers and persons whose occupation is such that they are more likely to be robbed.

I love to shoot, but I think there are types of guns that private citizens neither need nor should find accessible to them. Unless the zombie apocalypse ever becomes a reality, if you find yourself in a situation where you're wishing you had a safe filled with AR-15s, having one won't help you.

Thre is gun control - for non whites - in this country. Look at the news and at statistics.
That said, there are plenty of things that could be done with no constitutional changes needed (note we do not adhere to Hamiltonian interpretations- look them up). We could ban semi automatics and restrict the number of shells in a clip. 40 years ago when I still hunted, the state only allowed me to have three bullets in my gun to deer hunt. We could do like Iceland, or to some extent Finland and Switzerland, and require mandatory training and testing. We could go back to the "old" days when gun owners were held responsible for what are now tragic accidents (nobody wants to fine or imprison a grieving parent). We could do better background checks and keep people with physical violence offenses or domestic violence from obtaining them. We could, although I believe it is already better done than reported, keep mentally ill people from obtaining guns(this has a lot of flaws, as it has been politicised as a scape goat since most gun deaths attributed to mentally ill people are suicides).

Excellent ideas being offered.

The refusal by the Republican party to support any meaningful gun control legislation is an outrage. Their solution of fighting gun violence by arming more people makes as much sense as fighting an out of control forest blaze by setting more trees on fire.

This lunacy is all the result of special interest money corrupting the system to the point where even meaningless half measures are resisted before being grudgingly put up for a vote, after which, even they're likely defeated. The Murican love affair with firearms, ALL firearms, is a sickness. Own a handgun for protection. One handgun. No one needs a military grade assault weapon to shoot a duck or even a rapist. A simple revolver will get the job done.

On a more hopeful note; a gun shop not far from me that proclaimed itself "Your AR-15 Superstore" recently went out of business. That really surprised me.

This whole gun thing is crazy. The NRA love to make people fear each other so they can sell guns. Now you never know who might have a gun and want to use it because they can just say "I was in fear for my life" like the ignorant Ahole in this story [fox9.com]
What the story doesn't say is that the group of teens were Somalies, that is probably why he felt justified in harassing them in the first place.
I don't mind guns for hunting or if you need one for your job, but to just parade around like it's the wild west, that has to end. None of these people have the training required to carry a gun if the police apparently don't have enough training that they are shooting civilians because they get scared.

More control is needed regarding access to guns and ownership

Being from the UK I have no dog in this fight but all the NRA arguments for the right to own guns. Could be used for north Korea having nukes.

Who do ordinary Americans need protecting from? I hear comments on the subject stating for home protection or oppressive government, then America votes in an oppressive POTUS45, yet doesn't turn their guns on him?
The USA is a modern country with large wild areas. In most American cities you're unlikely to be attacked by bears or cougars unless they happen to be large hairy gay men or mature ladies!
You have pretty good police forces, the worlds most powerful military. So why should every citizen demand guns? With modern supermarkets, people no longer really need to hunt, just pop down the shops! I'll stop there. If you have guns, be responsible, be safe and have fun with them.

They should be much more difficult to own.

America needs a national gun discussion. I believe we all agree that we're tired of all the gun deaths. At the same time, we believe in the 2nd Amendment. Somewhere in there, there's room for a solution.

Perhaps start with a definition of the 2nd Amendment. What does it mean today? Unfettered gun ownership? People seize on what is written in the 2nd Amendment like "shall not be abridged" and "well regulated militia". Move punctuation around, or add some punctuation, and meanings change. That needs to be discussed.

The second amendment ws written before the Civil War, back when there ws no national standing armies, but national defense was dependent on state militias. After the Civil War, the U.S. has had a national standing military, so the need for citizens to keep guns for national defense has long since passed about 150 years ago and the second amendment is antiquated and needs to be updated and clarified to reflect the time we now live in. Also, when the second amendment was written fun technology was limited to single shot flint lock weapons, which took about 30 seconds to reload.. The idea that a single individual could wipe out several dozen people in just a couple of minutes was beyond the comprehension or imagination of those who wrote the second amendment.

We need much stricter gun laws. Thorough background checks, waiting periods, limits on magazine capacities, bans on military weapons, age restrictions, etc.

Just counted my guns, four rifles, two of which are antiques. Two pistols, one of which is an antique. All are .22 caliber. I am sorry for those who feel they need an external penis to be a man. I would not put up with the hassel to carry a gun. What comes to mind is the statement, "If you think education is exspensive try ignorance!

I live in the UK, I think the US is fucking nuts to have just about anyone running around with weapons of war. Revolutionary think not required, just common sense. Guns kill people, more gunskill more people.

"I still hear people state the fallacy that we need our guns to protect us from an oppressive government." How would your argument play to a survivor of 1930's Germany? There were many then who said the same thing when warned of what was coming..."...it cannot happen here!". Hitler did not seize power...he was elected. Trumps oligarchy of the wealthy did not seize power, they were elected. They violated the Constitution by not allowing Obama to appoint Supreme Court Judges...now the Court is loaded with Trump's minions. Republicans gerrymander and suppress opposition votes as well as other measures to solidify their strangle hold on the nation. You seem oblivious to the parallels of the 1930's. Not only can it happen here, you may be witnessing it happening. You strike me a very naive, or lacking in historical knowledge. Nothing remains the same, everything is in constant flux...our Democracy is being threatened any yet you seem oblivious. It cannot happen here, can it?

Statistically the less guns you have the less gun violence you have (crazy right?) but Americans are fucking petrified of everything, ESPECIALLY the right. They're fed bullshit that criminals can always get guns regardless of laws even though this isn't true in other countries, and that the only way they can not die is by having a gun on them that again, statistically is more dangerous to the owner and family of. But they're stupid, so there are cold dead fingers that you'd need to pry them from.

Most definitely, each and every life is precious! Each life is a singular and unique entity, and all are worth protecting to the utmost. Concerning guns... I push for full disarmament, of both citizens and enforcers. We should be utilizing non-lethal means, at all cost, in policing. It's senseless to give lethal means to enforcers, and watch as they kill an innocent bystander by mistaking them for the perp. We have militarized the police, so they act as military, with much less training, and citizenry become the enemy. As for gun ownership and mass shootings... As a mental health worker, I will posit that no murder or mass shooting is ever done by someone who could be considered "sane" at the time. Within every group of humans on earth, there is a percentage of group members with mental health concerns with symptoms that can include possible losses of reality (e.g. times of possible "psychosis" -seeing, hearing or believing something that isn't there or is way outside the realm of normal reality). So, one day, as fans of gun ownership bond over their love of shooting and their gun collection, they don't realize that 1-3% of the other gun fans in the conversation may have these mental concerns. It's great to think that we could take guns away from those who were appropriately diagnosed, but this often only occurs AFTER a possible grave incident. And if guns are in society, a person who wants a gun can get a gun if they desire, legally or illegally (be that because the person knows who owns one that they can steal, or their dad was holding their guns and decided it was okay to return the guns to the individual, or the individual just goes to the black market). I believe that the only way forward is to remove guns from being available at all. I willingly give up my right to own a gun, if it keeps society safer and protects life. Some say "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns". That's a neat idea that is short sighted. You can outlaw them now, and in 20 yrs, we'll have a gun-free society, or you can wait another 20 yrs, and in 40 yrs we'll have a gun-free society. Many very rational nations have outlawed guns, and do we really still have fears that the Gov't will exert control over us with weaponry? They have many ways that are working just fine already that have naught to do with actual bullets. The concept of Gun control being one of them.

I understand how gun possession is rooted in the days of the frontier and the need for protection. As times change so do social requirements and I suspect about 100 years ago it should have been addresses. Probably too far down the track now for any reform not be seen as an erosion of freedom. Difficult for any administration to address.

"We are killing ourselves in numbers that we would not tolerate if those deaths were caused by any other product on the market." Not so. Guns are not even in the top ten causes of death in the U.S. Do the research (Google "Causes of death in the U.S." ) There are 250,000 deaths caused by medical mistakes per annum... how much press does that get? There are twice the number of deaths due to overdoses than due to guns. Also note that most of the "gun deaths" are in fact, suicides. You have not done your research. "More guns as the solution to gun violence", while touted by some pro-gun people is naught but a straw man argument.

We’ve participants who seem only to appear with regard to this subject, though piling on Hillary’s another favorite.. They employ an ‘all or nothing’ strategy, meaning, if you’re for ‘gun control,’ your solution must be confiscating & banning the manufacture of all guns…

I’m impressed by the vast majority of participants, though. Rarely is Atheism revealed in the debate, beyond a common (which unfortunately isn’t all that common) sense attitude that appears to align with most national polls on the subject. But, as it also appears nationally, not only do gun nuts love to carry a big piece (makes you wonder..) - they always sound eager to use it.

So, instead of allowing for a moderate debate, the kind that would likely tweek and finetune our gun laws on a National level, eliminating the worst offenders yet leaving what’s been customarily used for home & personal defence or legitimate hunting … such discussions are either shutdown or endlessly harassed by those, not wanting a safter nation, but the continued ‘right’ to hord military designed weapons with massive clips of armor-piercing ammo to match their assault-ready body armor.. Good luck