I agree with most of what you say.  Sadly, some people will kill other people under some circumstances, and some, apparently, are highly likely to murder.  However, I would like to keep guns out of the hands of persons likely to kill with them, and especially, guns capable of killing large numbers of people in a very short time frame.  Those guns are for warfare, where there is a need for the individual soldier to kill or disable a swarm of people in self defense or as part of an aggressive operation.  An uncle I never met was killed by machine gun fire in the Battle of the Bulge.  War is a horror.  I hate war, but like murder, it seems to be imprinted into human DNA.  In that regard I, also, am a pessimist. Utter passivity doesn't seem to be the answer in an overcrowded world, but disarming criminals and the mentally incompetent (to the degree possible) makes sense to me.