Guns don't kill people, people kill people. We are not yet in the age of some automated gun turrets. If you want to blame guns, then blame all knives, baseball bats, axes and whatnot. All shall be banned, no? I say yes, I see no difference between being shot and stabbed to death, for both you need a clear intent, but accedents can (and do) happen.
Seriously, how hard is to understand that weapons are not bought only for attack, but also for self-defense, ALSO for sport/fun, as collectibles etc. In fact, it takes a extremely dull character who needs to commit a crime with a weapon and goes to store to get registered for one. I mean, seriously, this is what you are saying? Because this isn't ahppening. Ban guns, and you'll severely restrict common citizen's access to them, but not so much criminal's one. In fact, i would expect illegal arms trafficking to skyrocket. War on drugs all over again.
There should be a check (of rules/laws knowledge, mental capability, clean criminal record etc.) before selling a gun. Guns for civilians shouldn't be full automatic either. But that's it. Rest is about living in freedom, or in a system that doesn't trust its own citizens and needs to control them. Just look at any news how power-greedy politicians are.
Who are you to tell other people they should abandon their hobbies ie of practise shooting, just because you feel that their real power to overthrow their government is "small"? You would be surprised how untrue this really is if whole nation would stood up to its government. But without guns, of course they wouldn't stand a chance
The whole rationale behind the "guns will protect our liberty" movement is that it is much easier to kill people with guns than with baseball bats and knives. It's just that in practice the people being killed relatively quickly and effortlessly with guns are real civilians and not hypothetical fascist stormtroopers.
However it seems that most low tech insurgencies fighting against the advanced conventional militaries of the West always seem to win, from Vietnam right up to Afghanistan / Iraq.
But it didn't really work during the US Civil War.
How can you possibly judge that? For all you know, having 300 million guns in America is keeping the earth's magnetosphere intact through some weird quantum effect. It's highly unlikely, but you have no idea what the actual benefit of the 2nd amendment is because there is no possible way to empirically determine what the past would have been like without it.
This is not a difficult problem.
It was given in order to establish militias, which the government can use to prevent insurrections and invasions, per section 8 of the US constitution.
No government allows its citizens the right to overthrow it. I have no idea why people think that? Do you?
Because they had, in fact, just overthrown an oppressive government. I have no idea why you think the founders did not consider that potential outcome. Jefferson even said "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion".
Can you think of another example of the right of the militia to bear arms ever being codified, anywhere in the world? Why would it need to be?
The right is specifically stated as being one of the people's rights. The militia is a reason, not the subject.
If the First Amendment had read "A well educated Legislature, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed" would you argue that only legislators had the right to keep and read books? No, you would not. Nor would anyone else, because that would be a nonsensical interpretation.
If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787)
The official US government question was already answered the 1860's. Many people had the mistaken idea that government allowed them the right to rebel against it. About 600,000 people found out the hard way that it was never their right.
People need to get their egos in check, because government always wins.