Almost everything I can say about guns and gun safety issues has been said and is being said a thousand times over and a thousand times better. I offer only a couple of thoughts I haven't heard lately.
2nd Amendment:
The Second Amendment was adopted at a time when the young country had no standing army, much less a national arsenal. Now, we do. Recruits are not required, indeed not allowed, to bring their own personal firearms with them when they enlist. The interpretation that the 2nd Amendment confers the right for every individual to own guns has been the law of the land only since 2008, and that ruling came with some restrictions that we have found ways around.
Criminals will always find a way to get a gun.
True. There are so many guns in the country now that it would be a nearly impossible task to confiscate even the most dangerous of them. However, the people we usually mean when we refer to criminals are generally people in it to make a living. Robbery, drug running, sex slavery and the like. We may refer to guys like the Las Vegas killer as "criminals," but they ain't in it for the money. There's something wrong with them, something more intensely wrong than with the guy who sticks you up and takes your wallet. There was something intensely wrong with Stephen Paddock. He bought his guns and paraphernalia over the counter. He shouldn't have been able to. We made it far too easy for him. We can make it harder.