Here's how I see this issue. It's like so many other political issues in this country. Both sides are so full of BS that the real facts of the issues really will never be found or discussed.
First, you have two groups of people who, if you open up your mind:
a) Rural people who grew up hunting and shooting and they have never been around gun violence or anyone who they would think would be threatening with a gun. These people look at their gun ownership and flat out don't understand why someone would even think about taking them away and they look at the constitution and say.."Hey....you CAN"T take them away".
b) Mostly urban people who have NOT grown up around guns, have no clue how to handle them and honestly....are clueless as to why anyone would ever want anything to do with them due to the fact in their city they see every night on the news gun violence and death.
Personal opinion here, yes, guns are the tools being used in the violence. However, my belief is that there are much deeper issues that needs to be addressed than if the guy has a gun in his hand. We need to be looking at everything that has happened up to the point where the guy went down on the street corner and bought a pistol to pack around and then ended up in a situation where he wants to use it.
There are major portions of both of these groups that absolutely refuse to even come close to learning about the other side and try to understand where they are coming from.
I will say two things coming from the side as a gun owner.
a) I personally think as a gun owner, I need to be part of the conversation as to finding a solution if there is any type of solution that involves the supply of the guns. I'm tired of the NRA and others just flat out blocking any idea of any solution coming from our side.
I DO want the CDC to study this with the idea of looking at not just guns (include them in the study but not just focus on them) but look at everything else around the situation in these communities where all this gun violence is happening. Sure, you can say it's poverty. However, we have had horrible poverty before in this country without people thinking they need to blow each other away with a gun. (Well, I guess minus the wild west era)
b) I am also (even more so) sick and tired of gun toting idiots prancing around acting like THEY are protecting me from some type of evil tyrannical government that is out to destroy our way of life and eat our children. What a load of BS. These people act like their IQ is about -10 and their actions actually work against trying to get people from the other side to understand their view on the issue.
Once again, one thing that I very seldom, if ever, hear mentioned in the political arena is that since 1985, violent crimes has decreased dramatically. If I were the CDC, I would start there and ask....why? Guns are still in our society just as much as in 1985. We have also just gone through a very very bad economic time. So.....why the drop? I think that would give us a very good idea of what the solution is to the rest of the violent crimes.
Sorry for the rant.