It seems to me that the culture essentially treats guns as a facet of life just like cars, and that the national consciousness therefore sees gun accidents as an unavoidable incidence of that reality, like car accidents are for cars. In effect, people who do this stuff are thought of as the drunk drivers of gun ownership. Just as your average responsible Corvette owner would be upset at the notion that he can't drive his fast car just because some other a-hole decided to get liquored up and run a red light, so gun owners bristle at the thought of having bad actors influence their ability to enjoy their hobby to its fullest and buy whatever wholly impractical (though deadly in the wrong hands) toy they want to.
That, as near as I can tell, is the mindset. And it's going to be a pretty hard one to change, unfortunately.
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