The US has a violence problem. We also have lots of guns.

I love guns. I enjoy shooting them, building them, and collecting them. I've got over 50 firearms ranging from a 50-dollar unbranded used 22 to a "I don't really want to think about how much I've spent on this" custom Bergara precision rifle. And of course I have a ton of optics and a few silencers. I also recognize that most of that collection was too easy for me to get, and that if I were unstable or violent I could cause a lot of harm.

I also concede that the pro-2A crowd has a point that registration of firearms is a line they don't want to cross because it's a necessary first step towards mass confiscation.

And with the current political climate, I'm glad the government doesn't know about my guns. If they could look up how many guns I own and that I'm a leftist, how quickly would they label me as an armed enemy of the state?

The guns are a very hard nut to crack, and the political reality is it's almost impossible to restrict them. There's millions of pro-gun single-issue voters and almost no pro-gun-control single-issue voters.

So the more realistic approach is to violence, not gun violence. We do that by making society more equitable, providing social services, free healthcare (including mental health), and worker protections. Keep peope from being driven by desperation into crime and provide mental healthcare to those who need it, and we'll significantly reduce gun violence without doing a thing about guns themselves.