I’m not arguing in any way that we need to get rid of the Second Amendment. I’m also not saying that there is no right to self-defense implied in the Constitution. I fully support private ownership of firearms. What I don’t support is the notion that purchasing a deadly weapon should be as easy as purchasing a gallon of milk.

As for your “argument” that taking away guns won’t stop murderers, that’s just another way of restating the worn out “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” slogan, as if that’s somehow an unassailable fact.

Yes, people kill people. Sometimes they do it with knives, or by running over them with their cars, or by beating them to death with a hammer.

None of those true facts have any bearing on the issue of gun control, for one reason: a firearm is one of the EASIEST ways to hurt or kill someone, to include one’s self. It’s HARD psychologically and physically to beat someone to death with a hammer. It’s HARD to look someone in the eyes and stab them with a knife. It’s even hard to run over somebody with a car. Do you know why? Because it requires you to get up close and personal. The further removed one can be from their enemy and still destroy them, the better. Hence the atomic bomb, hence modern stand-off weapons that can kill from dozens of miles away.