Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana

Whoo Brother! You just stepped in there and kicked that hornet's nest didn't you! Good for you :) For the record, I own guns for hunting.

It's a tough problem and you're right - it boils down to the heart, not the object. What bothers me more than the issue itself is watching the radical polarization occurring across our country and people refusing to engage in intelligent meaningful conversation and compromise (and I do think the solution will take compromise on both sides of the fence). We can all agree there are problems, but its truly disturbing to see our society tear itself apart the way it is rather than coming together to solve the problem.

I agree with your comments on the origin of the 2nd Amendment and its purpose. However, I do think that even with ARs, AKs, etc, are not "equal" to the might of the U.S. military, and the American people would be hard-pressed to defend themselves against the U.S. Government if it truly wanted to suppress them with military power. Civilians have no capacity to deal with air strikes, drones, robotics (look at some of Boston Dynamic's work - they're not just doing that for fun), and other methods that I'm sure are not publicly known. The only hope that civilians would have would be if the military itself fragmented. Either way, the results of that outcome would be catastrophic and I pray we never live to see something like that.

So, that said we do have to offer solutions, and none of them will be perfect. All of them will cost money (other than improving society's morality, but that's been on a rapid decline for quite some time)

I think there could be more done to screen people, but I also think that will only slightly help the problem, not stop it. Actually, nothing will stop it - even banning will not stop it because those who want to will obtain illegally or hell, they'll just 3d print one and make it at home (it's easy enough). Or they'll just go look up how to build a bomb on the internet. Either way, banning is not the solution.

Ban 3d printer's, Ban the internet! - someone just yelled on the internet - haha..

So the armed security 'could' work, but the challenge there is the cost. It would be interesting to see the NRA use its own funding to offer that as a solution. But we all know that the school systems in the U.S. are underwater financially so some solution would be required to fund the added security.

I don't know what the real answer is. I'm glad you lead your post with educational content, and that you're not afraid to stand up against the tidal wave of hate that the interweb likes to propagate.