I'm sorry but the argument that guns = freedom doesn't hold water. That is just the simplistic argument put forward by people with a vested interest. It's simplistic because it doesn't take a lot of thought or examination to digest.
Most of Europe is by any definition, free. They have been free for at least the last 150 years. Their freedom didn't come from making high powered, rapid rate of fire, firearms available for every nut job in the area.
This is confusion that plagues the US in comparison to other free countries. The rate of incidences like this is EXTREMELY rare compared to the US.
There is also a huge distance between reasonable and effective gun laws and no guns at all. Instead of seeing things as all on or all off, it would be incredibly more useful to talk about what kinds of laws would reasonably protect the vast majority of people. What we have in this country is insane. Ask the rest of the world, they'll tell you. The right place does not look like Dodge City in 1875 
. It looks like a place where people can go through their lives without the concern of being shot to death by some imbalanced nut job, or because they are in the wrong neighborhood.
And what's the violent crime rate in England nowadays? How about Australia? Or Chicago? How does that gun control work out for them?
Guns don't equal freedom. Well what, exactly is freedom? Is it the right to run arond the streets naked with green jello all over your body? Is that freedom? Or is freedom the right to live your life how you see fit, how you deem. The right to choose where you work, where you live, how you live, if you want to raise a family, how you raise your family. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness. That is freedom.
And what is a gun? A gun is a tool. It is a violent, highly capable and extremely effective tool. But more to the point, guns are power. Raw, unfiltered, no nonsense power.
A man with a gun has a power that a man without a gun will never achieve. The power to choose. And choosing is what freedom is all about.
If guns never existed, then strength of arm and skill with a bow would be the equals of that power. Physical size, sharpness of sword and innate hand-eye coordination would be the powers that let you choose your life. A 6 ft 230 lbs. man could choose any life he wanted in such a world, he could very easily choose to dominate or take what he wanted because very very few people could stand up to him. He could become a champion of righteousness, he could become a king, a conqueror, or he could become a murderer, a rapist, a being most vile and foul and very few people could hope to stop him.
A 14 year old girl with a gun has more power than he.
The men who created this nation understood this. They understood that for freedom to exist, for people to be able to choose their lives they must have the power to do so. And power stems not from an idea, not from a belief, not from the vote, or from a government, or divine mandate. The root of all power throughout all of history, is by what one man or woman can physically do. The ultimate form of power on this Earth, is the ability to end life. It has been so for thousands of years. The threat of it has seen nations rise and fall. Has seen people act with extraordinary valor and others with utter deprivation.
How then do you make certain that the people you wish to protect have the power to protect themselves?
You arm them. You let them, as a right of citizenship carry whatever arms they deem necessary to protect themselves. The ultimate power of the Earth then rests, not with a king, not with a priest, or a book of law interpreted by a council, but divided, split 300 million times amongst the people who have no desire to abuse it.
Some will die, there will be accidents, some will abuse this power but others will be there to stop them. In a far more effective manner than any watch, police force, or army.
The tragedy that has taken place is not that guns were used to kill people. If a man is crazy, if a man desires it, he can kill just as effectively, just as many people, if not more, with weapons that aren't guns, and that are far easier to obtain.
The tragedy is that people died, and a man killed them. The tools are irrelevant.
