I will say I am encouraged to see you take the proper response to the latest round of gun massacres: That gun access by the MENTALLY ILL AND/OR CRIMINALS is the problem, not general gun access. Too often the debate devolves into "guns for everyone!" vs. "guns for none!" attitudes, equally dangerous for different reasons. Meanwhile, of course, neither addresses the root problem that criminals and/or the mentally ill with weapons are a public menace whether wielding Vulcan machine guns or Bowie knives. The worst terrorist attack on US soil was committed by guys with box cutters; having guns would have obviously increased but just as obviously could not create that preexisting threat.

America needs more gun control as such, but equating control with prohibition, either positively or negatively, clouds the issue and impairs public safety. Safe public access to all guns is possible, but only by regulating ownership in proportion to a guns lethality. For example: Criminal and mental health background checks for shotgun purchases are reasonable, but requiring mental health exams is not; exams would, IMHO, be a reasonable requirement for purchasing fully automatic guns. The devil is in the details, of course, but that is the proper debate, not whether or which guns should be available at all. Requiring licenses issued on condition of demonstrating safe responsible use is reasonable in any case; we demand no less for drivers, and it is easier to kill with a gun than with a car.

All that said, America also needs better public healthcare generally. That is but one of many ways the country would greatly benefit from reforming the "on your ownership society" that encourages isolation and alienation, which in turn foster antisocial behavior. Telling people life is them against the world promotes an adversarial relationship with society. That imperils the publics mental health in the first place, but for those already mentally unstable it can and sometimes does send them over the edge. Desperate people do desperate things; desperate OSTRACIZED people do desperate and appallingly VINDICTIVE things.