We may not often think about it in these terms, but if you’re a gun advocate (or a member of the party that supports unfettered gun rights), you’re saying that all this is just the price we have to pay for the joy some people take in their guns. No other developed country pays it, but we must.

So yes, if I had my way, there would be little private ownership of guns, and what there was would be highly regulated, with strict requirements on licensing, training, and record-keeping. You might be able to get an instrument whose very purpose is to kill, but you’d have to jump through some pretty serious hoops, and there would be lots of things that could disqualify you from that privilege. You could keep a small number of bolt-action hunting rifles, but anything else you’d have to go to a range to use, unless there were some extraordinary circumstance that absolutely demanded you keep a different kind of gun in your home. I realize that to some people that sounds like a nightmare.