I don’t mean to be rude, but the tone of your articles is starting to sound like the sort of frothing-at-the-mouth ranting that I usually see coming from irrational gun-fetish ideologues. Considering the fact that you promote yourself as a rational, objective examiner of this topic, you might want to consider backing up a bit from your emotional reactivity to this issue.

Some people (for example, Parkland survivors) are proposing certain solutions to gun violence that may or may not be supported by evidence, and I agree that it doesn’t make sense to use the impassioned proposals of survivors as the basis for policy decisions and/or legislation. But that DOES NOT mean that those people should be belittled as I unfortunately see all too often by frothing-at-the-mouth gun supporters. When you’re talking to or about a traumatised survivor, just be a decent human being – STFU and have sympathy. Save the policy debates and arguments for another time or context. And I don’t see the point in screaming about how school shootings are relatively rare considering the fact that gun violence in general is NOT rare in this country, especially within certain demographic groups. (FYI, I know this is just anecdotal, but I’ve personally never known anyone who died from a lightning strike or while bicycling or from drowning, and I’ve only known one person who died from an auto accident, but I have known *five* people who died by gun – one of them was murdered, and four of them were suicides. And yes, gun suicide *should* be considered part of the problem, precisely *because* of the fact that guns are more successful than other suicide methods, which means that reducing gun suicides would reduce the overall number of deaths by suicide.) And it also doesn’t make sense to reject ALL gun restrictions or regulations just because some people are proposing questionable solutions. (The “oh well nothing can be done just send thoughts and prayers” attitude of most Republicans has sickened me.) What *does* make sense is for policy-makers to commission and fund lots and lots of well-designed, objective research on specific gun control measures, which ones work and which ones don’t. Some of this has already been done, (see https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3) but research is still lacking, in large part due to political pressure from the NRA (see https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05/599773911/how-the-nra-worked-to-stifle-gun-violence-research). There is evidence, for example, that “stand your ground” laws increase gun homicides (this makes sense, as it often puts gun owners into the mindset that anyone who steps on their property is an intruder and should probably be shot. This has caused many tragic cases of people being shot after, for example, knocking on someone’s door to ask for help after a car wreck or to get directions because they were lost.) So there’s a case to be made for getting rid of those laws. There’s also evidence showing that universal background checks with no exceptions and a waiting period reduces gun violence. The point is, gun violence IS a problem in this country, and action SHOULD be taken to address this problem. That action should be based on solid scientific research, and research should never be discouraged for political reasons.