Should guns be banned in hospitals?

[primavera]

286. Strawman

We manage to keep guns out of courtrooms every day of the week. We manage to keep them off of airplanes. Even in the bygone days of the wild west that today's gun slingers are so enamored with, people often had to turn in their guns to the local sheriff upon entering a town, and that, too, worked. It is infinitely possible to prevent guns from being allowed into particular spaces, proof of it lies all around you.

As for the bigger question of how to prevent wackos from getting guns in the first place, there too exist solutions, such as stricter background checks and licensing requirements for guns. In order to obtain a driver's license, one has to demonstrate not only proficiency in operating a vehicle, but knowledge of the law, plus adequate eyesight, plus the absence of afflictions like epilepsy that might compromise the applicant's ability to safely operate a vehicle. And the driver has to re-establish this over and over and over again, every four years, for as long as s/he wishes to exercise the privilege of operating a vehicle on public roads. And that's just to be allowed to drive a car down the street to the supermarket! Gun proponents want free and unlimited access to devices whose single purpose is to inflict deadly harm on other living beings, with no greater requirement than that they pass a criminal background check, and they piss and moan about closing the gun show loophole that circumvents even that one pathetically inadequate precaution. You want to know how to keep guns out of the hands of wackos? Look to the countries of the developed world that have, one and all, embraced vastly stricter gun control laws and have for generations been reaping the reward of per capita gun fatality rates that are but a tiny fraction of ours.