So I meant to say earlier: I am puzzled by the fact that guns are the target of so much ire, when the real focus should be on public mental health and eliminating the kind of systemic disparities that foment cultures of violence.
I think it's an element, plus social fragmentation, etc (not simply US problems, of course).
Look, I'm still not happy with this inevitable zombie-discussion. And statistics are hard...
32k were in "metro" areas, only 7k in "non-metro."
What proportions of the population are in metro vs non-metro? And then how do you factor "deliberately aim a shot at the nearest person, it would have to pass through thousands of trees" risks vs "fire randomly into the air, some poor sod probably gets hit" ones? Even before the density-based geometric increase of casual encounters likely to generate equivalent ire and tribalism.
(Though I absolutely think there are way too many guns in the US, for spurious historical reasons, the main problem with gun control is that there are too many guns - in circulation and/or stashes - for it to properly work. You can't simply get to the relative no-gun utopias of the UK/Au/whatever without something approaching the power of an appropriately refocused Infinity Glove snap.)
Or a straight up pogrom. That reality is one of the reasons the NRA propaganda (and the GOP fear mongering) is so compelling to those so easily controlled.
The reality is that most of the problem is that you have people who mean well, but dont invest the energy to know the details-- which ends up in benign hunting rifles getting banned because "We gotta remove the sniper rifles!!". The banning of the hunting rifle is not intended. The removal of the sniper rifle is. It just so happens that the detail is that they are the same gun.
The people who want the gun control do not want to take away the hunting rifle, they are just unaware that the genuine consequence of banning the "Sniper rifle", is the banning of the hunting rifle. (because they are the same gun.)
The people who want the gun control do not want to do the pogrom path, for obvious reasons.
the great lie, as told by the NRA and the GOP, is that the people who want the gun control want the pogrom, and want to ban the hunting rifle. It is a half truth, and thus the worst kind of lie.
I am of the opinion that further gun control measures are not really compatible with the US, its constitutional provisions (short of an amendment to strike the 2nd), and the incumbent armaments.
Instead, I am of the opinion that what needs to happen, is that the calculus needs to be reversed a little-- Rather than the Fed dictating DOWN, by creating legislation that simply CANNOT meet the needs of everyone, due to mutually exclusive needs based on region--- The Fed agencies (like ATF), are instead ordered that they must comply to requests from state and city governments for local enforcement of local laws concerning those substances or items.
That solves the "City lacks resources to enforce" problem. If Chicago passes legislation saying "You cannot own, operate, or store the following weapons inside the city limits of Chicago, police and other enforcement agents are authorized upon reasonable suspicion of such possession or ownership to search and confiscate such weapons", they can then tap the ATF to facilitate enforcement.
That would clean up the problem in a much more targetted fashion, and would not fuck the people outside Chicago, that need those weapons.