That's not the point at all. Not even close.
For the sake of argument, say you're able to remove guns...you've accomplished what? Have you removed the causes of desperation and whatever other factors drive these people to acts of violence? Nope.
So when the next one hits his breaking point and decides he wants to go out in a blaze (and take a bunch with him), have you rendered him powerless? Not even. He can hop in the car and look for the nearest crowded sidewalk. Or walk into a grocery store with a backpack full of gasoline/fertilizer cocktail.
The violent assaults are an effect, and the means of attack are incidental. The point is to focus attention on the causes.
The means of attack are not at all incidental.
I would rather have my enraged tenant assault me with a frying pan than a Ruger.
I would rather have my 6-year-old nephew cut himself with a pen knife than shoot the upper half of his face off playing with a pistol.
I would rather have someone go postal in a mall while swinging a machete, rather than walking cooly from floor to floor with a semi-automatic rifle.
You are no doubt correct when you say that
some people,
very few, intent on creating the maximum mayhem, might drive their jeep into a crowd or use a fertilizer bomb at a football game.
But the overall effect of reducing firearm ownership would be to reduce death by murder and misadventure.
Those countries that don't have so many firearms in homes, cars, and in ankle holsters don't suffer nearly the same death rate.
Common sense suggests it, and the stats confirm it.
I don't understand how Americans of obvious intelligence such as yourself can ever fail to see these things.
They are not subtle observations at all. Entirely obvious.
