I’m skeptical of your claim that it’s not an emotional reaction but will concede in advance that it is irrelevant to the discussion.
I see that you (and you are of course not alone) seem to associate gun ownership strongly with the ability to protect oneself from harm. That I will not debate in terms of the potential for facing an armed assailant.
However I am unclear as to how the very discussion of a ban equates to threatening people’s lives.
This is weird to me because I feel like you are viewing me like some kind of bizzaro flavus aquila who just said the right wing equivalent of “why can’t we just discuss putting minorities in a big gas chamber?”
It’s an alien viewpoint to me but I guess i’m confused because I generally see those who are pro guns as being very very respectful of the military and law enforcement and yet they also seem to be the most worried about those people turning on them.
As far as criminals, and I think this was a focal point of your arguments, I would be interested to explore how many and what types of their guns are domestically diverted vs imported.
I still disagree that certain topics in the overall debate, such as a ban, should be off limits. Hell, I don’t think that arming school staff is right but I don’t think it’s right to refuse to let people discuss it.