That is illegal over here.
I think there’s a huge difference between banning and restricting, and it depends on what kind of restricting you’re talking about. For example, I’m not at all for banning guns, but still feel people convicted of violent crimes shouldn’t have access to them. I think the laws we have are probably fairly decent, but they aren’t necessarily always followed.
I honestly have no idea what option to choose.
Lifelong American. I’ve been handling firearms since I was 4 years old. Safe handling practices were so thoroughly drilled into my head I think it’d be easier to intentionally piss my own pants than to discharge a firearm in the house. Everything I have been taught has been designed to prevent exactly that from happening. Would I ever rethink that and take to keeping my irons loaded, and maybe within reach of my pillow? Not without some extraordinarily dark changes in our society. I realize there are folks with different ideas, but I felt it was worth pointing out that “Home defense” is not an acceptable use for the things for everyone.
I like the things. I don’t care for hunting but it’s a skillset I like to have. Mostly the little kid in me likes things that go Bang, but the competitive part of me enjoys overcoming a dozen personal variables and placing a bullet where I want it on a target. That’s what the things are to me. Part of who I am, like my love of cats and pizza. I struggle with giving up part of who I am, and who my family is, just because some people have murderous tendencies. So as far as the OP, I’m not keen on restrictions because often the ones I see proposed are geared more toward satisfying the voices screaming “Do something!” than actually keeping murderous people away from firearms. As if the firearms themselves were somehow dangerous.
I suggest requiring criminals to register as such.
Which shows another side of the cultural chasm. The outsider perception IS that the norm is “taking pot shots out the window”. Which is no thanks to the many irresponsible individuals who do anyway, and mass media that portray it that way.
The fewer guns, the better. If I could use magic I’d erase the 2nd amendment from the start.
But restrictions or bans galvanize the political Right, which is a bigger problem than just the gun deaths that go along with it. A gun ban could also destroy any hope of addressing climate change, destroy NATO, further corrupt our government, and on and on.
I said other because it differs greatly depending on what restrictions you are talking about. Many do nothing but criminalize law-abiding people without protecting anyone. Other restrictions may help.
Who says it’s only going to be a punch that you need to protect yourself from?
okay. I support restricting ownership of assault weapons, broadly defined. I see no downside to that, expect less profit for the manufacturers (and more votes for Republicans).
Yes. Further empowering right-wing politics may be the biggest downside to gun restrictions.
But will we further empower it?
Aren’t most people hostile to gun control already republicans? of the ones who aren’t, do you think they’ll switch over and become republicans?
Unless you qualify under the conditions of a “Disqualified person”, current laws are sufficient, other than that, Shall Not Be Infringed!
No, I don’t want crazy/evil/bad/stupid people to have access to firearms, but infringing on the rights of Law Abiding citizens that just happen to own a piece of Politically Inconvenient hardware isn’t the answer
My AR (that may or may not exist, or may or may not been lost in a “Tragic Boating Accident” is not harming anyone, it’s in the gun safe, (or not) quietly gathering dust, and Hell No, you aren’t taking it, as it’s no risk to you (if it exists) 
)
there is no functional difference between a Ruger Ranch Rifle in .223/5.56, and an AR pattern rifle, both are magazine fed semiautos (one pull of the trigger per bullet), one has a wood stock like Grandpa’s old hunting rifle, and the other has “Scary” black plastic furniture, they are functionally identical.
I live in the UK.
We’re not allowed to have guns for home defence and our beat police are not armed.
I haven’t noticed any downside.
On the one hand, I’m 66 and have never faced any form of home invasion.
On the other I have fired a .22 rifle at a shooting range (prone position) as well as used a shotgun for clay pigeon shooting.
So I live in a society that has strict gun control, but where you can still fire guns at targets in a properly supervised environment.
And no school shootings.
I live in a country where a violent felon with gang affiliations can send his girlfriend into a gun store, have her buy a gun and then she gives it to him in the parking lot.
Both our countries are winners.
I’d rather live in glee’s winner country, except all my stuff is here so here I’ll stay.
Off topic, but leaving America does keep getting more and more appealing.
The insane politics, the hatred of science, the rise of fascism, the embrace of racism, the war on feminism, the brutal health care, lack of retirement security, the gun violence, etc.
Most of those are happening everywhere, with America being swept along with a global current.
As a believer in American Exceptionalism, I prefer to conclude we’re leading the global current.
How about a waiting period and FBI background check for voting too? Amend the Constitution if you want to restrict rights guaranteed by said document.
Not only does it depend on what the restrictions are; it depends on how they come about. If, somehow, in America as it is today, a bare majority of anti-gun politicians got elected and immediately passed the most restrictive gun control laws they could, then the result would be that a lot of them would lose their next election and the laws they passed would be repealed. What would make a difference would be if education and research progressed to the point where the substantial majority of the people wanted those restrictions, and then elected representatives accordingly. We need to change the culture before we can change the laws.
Note also that there are more choices than “allowed everywhere” and “banned everywhere”. If somehow the Second Amendment were repealed, that’d just mean that it was up to the states: Alaska would be very unlikely to ban gun ownership by the folks who live three hours away from the police, but Rhode Island just might.