Quote Originally Posted by Rollo View Post
The thing is though that because gun ownership in the United States is so widespread, no-one can expect that all the necessary background checks can or will be done. In some cases where guns are owned legally, owners don't think about who might have access to them; especially when it's members of their own family and given that roughly 1 in 5 people will go through some degree of mental illness in their lives, the likelihood of a mentally ill person having access to firearms is greatly increased.
What do you do, then? Logically speaking, you might be right. However, culture and history has much to do with any issue as logic. In simple terms, you don't ban guns where everybody historically owns guns. That's not going to work, anyway, or it might be even counterproductive. Similarly, you don't open access to guns, where people are not used to them culturally.