There is a climate of fear generated by politicians and the press, Steve has written about how people think the number of unarmed people being shot by the police is out of proportion with reality. The FBI number of people in a "mass shooting" is far lower that what people are thinking of when they hear the words mass shooting. A few years ago, I looked up mass shootings in Maricopa County where I live. There had been two. A four-person drug deal gone bad and an apparent home invasion.

Arizona is a Constitutional Carry state, you don't even need a permit to carry open or concealed. Open carry in grocery stores is a sight common enough that people don't pay attention to it. Not long ago I saw a mother with a baby in her cart, open carrying a Glock. I do have the state issued permit, Reciprocity in many states, I can carry concealed in places that serve alcohol provided that I don't drink, and I can go into a gun store, buy a gun and a box of bullets and walk out the door with it because it assures that the State and Feds have checked me out already (periodic renewal and new check). I am not the least bit afraid to see someone carrying a gun. Even when you don't see it, they are there. The thing is, people with concealed carry permits, and even NRA members are not the people out committing crimes with guns. Felons, prohibited carriers, have guns and they do.

You mention the NRA. As a boy I took the NRA Safe Hunter Corse sitting in my 8th grade school desk. It was their targets and safety program that we used at my high school Rifle Club and with the Arizona Gun Safety training course I took. The NRA is not what people are thinking of when they think of the political arm of the NRA. It is the NRA/ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) which came into existence as a response to gun control advocacy.

Australia and Scottland? I couldn't care less what they do. They are not America. The guns will never all go away here, it is fantasy to think that criminals will give up useful tools. I frequently see news stories about a criminal arrest that included illegal firearm possession. The criminals are not concerned about gun laws.

We have different views partly because we have different situations. I'm not trying to get you to change your views, and you won't change mine. Pretty much all of my friends have at least one gun. None of them have committed a crime with them or had a negligent discharge/tragedy. Most of them are veterans.

A far bigger problem than guns is political partisanship which blinds people both sides of an issue. You named the political right for something I think is more common on the left, but both sides have their radicals don't they. Ignoring ours while pointing at theirs will never solve the problem.