Moxie, correct me if I am wrong, but all of America should already be a gun free zone by definition because the right to bear arms has long since been restricted to the right to keep a gun at home. As a civilian you don't have the right to bear arms. You don't have the right to walk around with a gun in your pocket (guys should only be concerned with one type of gun in their pockets, because a guy who gets laid is a guy who doesn’t kill people). You don't have the right to keep a gun in the glove compartment of your car. You are not allowed to take a gun to school, into the office, to the shopping mall, into a strip-club, to the movies, into a restaurant. So what is gun ownership all about?

Who really needs a gun? Somebody who is going for an armed robbery, murder, shooting police officers, gang wars, etc. There is no legitimate purpose for carrying a gun.

Self defense? BS. If you are on the street and somebody pulls a gun on you, what are you going to do? Pull out yours faster then Billy The Kid? Dart behind a car like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and then kill the evil fucker? Nope, you are going to freeze and be nice and while you think of all your loved ones you will be hoping that the psycho with the gun is going to let you live.

We already went through all this as a nation. In the days of the "Wild West" when there wasn't any law enforcement in the wilderness you had to be your own law enforcement. We evolved. We keep evolving. One of the primary functions of a people’s government is to guarantee the physical safety of its citizens. We can’t take over that function as individuals.

People often say that it’s not the guns that kill; it’s the evil people that kill, a gun is like a car, a neutral (harmless) instrument that isn’t evil in itself.

I don’t agree with that. A gun is an instrument that if utilized properly has only one function, one purpose. To cause severe physical harm, or worse, kill. Without a gun there is no way that one single person could kill 32 with the twitch of a finger. One could still kill with a knife, (or a hammer?) but it’s going to be a lot harder and it would never come the horrific body counts we are witnessing more and more.

Owning guns is part of American culture and one can’t take that away. There is a history, there is a tradition that needs to be respected. But I think it should become more difficult to buy a gun legally. It should become like buying and driving a car. You know, it’s not cars that kill, it’s people with cars that kill. I don’t know much about guns, so maybe what I am saying is redundant, but here is my proposal:

1) As a prerequisite to owning a gun you should first need to get a state issued license that you only get after passing a test (just like a driver’s license)

2) Then you should have to buy some form of (cheap) minimum liability insurance coverage for gun owners. Past history of mental illness? Bipolar? Sorry, no insurance is going to sign you on = no gun for you.

3) Then your gun would be registered under your name with a state department, and you would have to wait a few weeks until the department issues the registration and the store releases the gun to you – cooling down period for crimes of passion

4) Every gun, every weapon legally produced in the US should have an identification number engraved and registered to make the proliferation of illegal guns – at least the ones we make and sell in the US – more difficult.

Nothing of the above will prevent or eradicate crime. There still will be a black market where professional bad guys can get anything they need. But a sad nutcase like the Virginia Tech monster or the next bunch of mentally disturbed teen-age kids who are already out there planning to shoot more then 32 when their meltdown happens would be less likely to get those guns. Make it more difficult. Save some lives. At least try to.