Agreed. Ok, so we can move away from the notion that guns are not the root cause, that's a good first step.
At this point I would say that I'm not against gun control...but also I'm Canadian, so my perspective is very different. I don't mind the level of gun control we have up here, but I also know it would never fly south of the border. I think that if you want to increase gun control in America, you need to engage gun advocates and come up with a solution that will work in America...which will never happen without consensus, so you'd probably be better off being a little more open minded when speaking with the law abiding citizens who's rights you'd like to erode.
But I think you need to look at more than that. Why are people committing these crimes in the first place? Why are people committing suicide in the first place? Why is negligence causing so many deaths? What can be done about those things? You can't make the guns disappear...root cause IS important to get to, in light of that, so get to the root. You might not get gun enthusiasts to give up their rights, but if you take away the desire of someone to use a gun to commit a crime, understanding that you will never get rid of "crime" altogether, then perhaps they'd get behind that, and you both win - they keep their guns, and you sort out what you're actually concerned about, which is the amount of crime being committed with guns - and, as a side bonus, you might reduce crime in general. Seems like a better expenditure of effort, no?
