I like how you are trying to turn this into a racial thing when all we have brought up is ideals that differ from the ideals of our founding fathers.  Very nice move.

"If you find yourself in a fair fight, then your tactics suck."

-John Steinbeck

I care - gun ownership is a freedom covered in the Bill of Rights.  We lose that and we are on a slippery slope to lose more freedoms, like the First Amendment that somehow allows you to say "Praise Jesus" that a child died (or may die in your post). 

The current law protecting gun manufacturers only protects them from frivolious lawsuits.  If they build a gun that explodes or doesn't work then they are still "sue-able" just like any manufacturer is.  Would you support suing Ford for making a car that runs everytime you turn the ignition key on?  That is what the current law protects against.  A firearm is supposed to go bang when loaded & the trigger depressed.  The problem is that idiots sometimes operate cars (about 49,000 die on the US of A's roads each year) and firearms.  The need is to educate and somehow control those who use any potentially dangerous tool.

Not sure who or what made you superior to others that you throw bigoted comments ("one less hillbilly") around and expect to be appluaded. 

If you put forth laws to restrict ownership the only people you restrict are those that follow laws in the first place. The criminal is never or very rarely affected by this. So, the alternative is to account for each and every weapon out there, which results in the registry issue. But, when you do this you essentially give an invasion force a shopping list of the location of guns or the government a shopping list. So, which is more important? Or which is more likely?

Some want to protect themselves from the government or the invasion force. Sure, makes sense. Nothing wrong with this mindset at all. But if there is an invasion force or the government really decides to take our guns is having them registered really going to make that much of a difference? And while history does show a trend where this is concerened history also shows plenty of times where it just flat didn't matter when confronted with a force that was overwhelming.

The others would like to see criminals robbed of their weapons. This is impossible to completely do but it could be done to a very large part via tracking and registration options. It would take time but you could get many of the guns off the streets. But, here's the problem, does that really accomplish the intention of making you safe from criminals? I don't think so.

So, there it is, there is no win in this fight. I do find stopping criminals a higher priority than stopping the potential invader, but, weapons don't make them criminals. Take away the things that make them criminals and you take away crime.

The only way to accomplish what is needed for crime reduction is to mandate stiff penalties for gun crimes, like Florida's 10-20-Life policy, but the justice system and society are too soft to stick to those sentencing guidelines. No matter what laws you put in place, a criminal that wants a gun will get one. Meanwhile disarming the population only makes a criminal more bold about commiting crimes.

Ed