pulse shooting in orlando, FL

[Daughter of Mew]

The thing is, people don't want to outlaw guns. They want to heavily regulate them. We don't want to take away guns from people (not all of them, anyway).

^This is exactly what I was trying to say, but phrased a lot better. A lot of Americans seem to think regulation=prohibition, but that's not the case. It's exactly like alcohol and tobaco - they're not prohibited, but they ARE regulated (albeit not very well) to ensure minimal damage. The right to bear arms is literally protected in the constitution, and it has a lot of importance to the USA as a country, but safety also has to be considered. Stringent checks are actually the best of both worlds - it protects that right, while also filtering out most of the dangers.

It's also worth noting that people have a tendency to seriously overestimate crime; the chance of someone actually breaking in to your house is extremely low, but repeated exposure in the media etc. makes people think it's more likely that it really is. I study Psychology and my uni specialises in Forensic Psychology so I know a fair bit about that effect. I can totally understand the fear though - I see it every day as my boyfriend refuses to go to bed without double locking our front door, despite the fact we're the top floor of a block of flats and know every resident.