I don't think the problem is so much the guns as the culture of violence.

[quaker bill]

116. Allow me to translate

It is not the mechanical device, it is that we as a culture cannot handle them. This is not an exactly profound observation.

If no one ever touched them, the existence guns would be just fine. The problem is that they get introduced to the culture when people own them.

There is an easy and fairly obvious solution.

Actually, I am pretty sure that gun control would significantly solve our violence problem. In the absence of guns, violence generally will have to be conducted with closer contact and with greater symetry between the perpetrator and the victim. There is a significantly greater chance that the perpetrator will be injured or killed in the process, which curiously, is why guns were invented. They were invented to produce an overwhelming advantage in combat.

This does not mean violence goes away. People were pretty good at killing each other before guns were invented, but it was piecework, one murder at a time.