I take exception, Mr. Majumder, to the unnecessary ad-hominem attack.
You obviously don’t know much about me or how I think, if your conclusion is that I’m simply another gun nut.
I am opposed to doing something that doesn’t work. Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York all have incredibly stringent requirements to acquire, own and operate firearms. Chicago’s violent crime rate is absolutely ridiculous and until recently they had a complete BAN on handguns and so-called “assault weapons.” If gun control actually worked, Chicago should be the safest city in the U.S.

I’m willing to make allowances for differing violent crime rates of urban versus rural and sub-urban areas. And even with those differences, every instance in the United States where severe firearms restrictions, background checkes, registration, the works has failed.

Now, I did see a very interesting TED talk about applying a viral/epidemic model to predicting violence (tool immaterial), and it had great success. Gary Slutkin’s approach was to treat violence like a contaigious disease and had pretty substantial success and warrants further research and widespread implementation.

Oh, to address your point about being afraid of the government coming to take my guns. I’m not. I will comply with the law; it’s part of that whole law-abiding-citizen thing. IF the government does come to take my weapons, I do expect just compensation for them which is required by the 4th Amendment. And on that note, let’s presume that the average price of a firearm between class I (Non-NFA) firearms runs around 750USD and there is an estimated 300M legally-owned firearms, that’s going to cost the taxpayers approximately 225B USD. That price tag is why I’m totally not worried about the government coming to take my firearms. On top of that, they’d have to overturn the SCOTUS’ Heller decision where it specifically protects firearms in common usage. That definitely protects shotguns, bolt-action rifles, lever-action rifles, semi-auto rifles, pistol-caliber carbines, revolvers and semi-auto handguns just to rattle off the ones off the top of my head. After overturning Heller, they’d need to amend the constitution to remove the second amendment. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Finally, I’m opposed to “trying” things that have failed, and failed miserably. 400 murders in Chicago, a gun-control “utopia,” I’d say that’s pretty much a failure.

And for the record, despite my clearance, I STILL had to undergo a very thorough background check to get my carry-and-conceal license AND I still have to do a NICS background check every time I buy a new firearm, and most used ones. Most firearm sales, including at gun shows, go through an FFL and there’s a background check. I’m not opposed to improving the system, because that may actually help the system to run better. The police don’t have a responsibility to protect the citizenry, and lately we’ve seen a lot of instances where the police are just as hazardous to the citizens as the criminals. I’m not so foolhardy as to think that simply possessing and carrying a firearm is some panacea that is going to let me walk away from any given engagement. That’s not how life works. You need to train with your weapon, know your weapon, know threat assessment, threat mitigation, deescalation, egress, and you have to see and listen to your surroundings. You actually have to know how to execute cover drills, reload drills, firing on the move, positive identification of your target and what’s beyond it. There’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into carrying a weapon that most carriers take into consideration. Having been the victim of violence several times in my life, I’ll take my chances with my training and my SIG Sauer.

My final point in response to you is that in a world with limited time and resources doing things just to say that you’re doing SOMETHING is a waste of effort. If you are doing in the name of the dead then shame on you. Crafting haphazard laws that have minimal chance of working will not bring the dead back. If your sole purpose is to control people, which is the sense that I’m getting, you need to rethink why we have enumerated freedoms. Violence has been part of the human condition since the dawn of time and it will continue to be with us until the end of time. I sincerely hope that no one has to defend you with a firearm. I sincerely hope that NO ONE has to defend anyone, to include themselves with a firearm. Until such day comes, I will prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Thank you for your time.