One thing about all these arguments is that rifles and assault rifles are used in a tiny percentage of US homicides. If the US murder rate is 4.88, and the managed to destroy all the assault rifles in the country, the best case would be to maybe move the rate to 4.84. I'm all for getting rid of them, and don't see any reason anyone should be allowed to have them, but what is the real point?
Hand guns are a much bigger problem. So why such an urgency to try to do something about the 17 people who died in this shooting, when 350 other people were murdered this week by other means. Lots of them were kids too, and I'm sure were very tragic stories. Is the point to just try to stop from having to see these stories on the news that make us so sad and angry while ignoring the many other people murdered in the country every day? Simply removing rifles will not make us safer in any kind of measurable way. Restricting rifle purchases without destroying existing ones would have even less of an impact.
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