I'm not coming at gun control from the angle of trying to prevent people from having access to guns. I'm coming at it from the angle that the government should try to exercise due diligence to make sure that people who do purchase firearms legally are informed of laws surrounding firearms and safe usage of them.
What I would ideally like to see is something similar to the following:
Before you're allowed to purchase any firearms, you must get a gun-owners license. To get one you'd need to take an approved course on gun laws and gun safety, and pass a simple test on the same subjects. The test should be very basic and most of the answers should be common sense (similar to the driver's test to get your learner's permit). You only need to take the course once, and you can take the test as many times as you want until you pass.
Then, whenever you purchase a gun, you would need to register it with the government. Ideally, the gun would have a unique identification number etched into it in several places, similar to the VIN number on a car.
The only other restriction would be you'd have to pass a criminal background check.
What if we applied the same thing to the first amendment
You must present a license to go to political debate forums,chat on the phone,talk or write letters to anyone, go to church, be a reporter, protest or to address grievances to the government.
You must take classes on what is and isn't offensive, what constitutes libel and treason. If you want to join a church you must take classes first on what that religion believes in as so not to offend them or be surprised when certain issues come up.
You must register you pencil, paper,computers,telephone and anything else used for verbal or nonverbal communication, you must register your bibles and other religious books and anything else used to exercise 1st amendment rights.
Ideally each pencil or pack of pencils should have a unique lead content so that if someone writes a threatening letter it can be traced back to the person who bought the pencil.Paper should have a unique composition so that a threatening letter can be traced back to the person who bought the paper Computers and computer hardware should be registered so that if someone downloads copyrighted material,slanders someone,threatens someone or downloads child porn the computer can be traced back to the person who bought it.
Bibles should have a unique serial number just in case someone hits someone over the head with it or uses it for hate speech and leaves it at the scene it can be traced back to it's original owner.
Telephones/cellphones and any other device used for communication should have a unique serial number as its parts and be registered with the government so that if you make a threatening phone call,slander someone, spreads hate speech, or anything else the government can trace it back to the person who bought it.
You must pass a criminal back ground check before getting a 1st amendment license.