I literally said "I'm not blaming gun hobbyists for violence." Thank you for starting off with a terribly bad faith reading of my comment.
> If you're a US citizen, gun control is an infringement on your civil rights
And this is what I mean by them being connected. Gun hobbyists in the US will argue for it based on their "rights", which just makes it harder to make any changes that might actually reduce gun violence.
> Even if you could round up all the guns, the ... violence will remain without some structural changes.
It's difficult for me to believe that if you remove one of the easiest ways to kill people, violence would just remain the same. Is there any evidence to support this theory? I've never seen any, but I have seen data suggesting that countries with stricter gun control laws tend to have less murders.
> gun control is an infringement on your civil rights
Because gun ownership is part of your constitution, you can easily make it seem as though those questioning it are attacking the very basis of your country. Seems like a systemic issue to me...
> the hopelessness ... will remain without some structural changes.
I don't disagree that hopelessness is the core issue here, but I think it's blatantly silly to think that if you give a hopeless population easy access to tools whose entire function is to kill, and tell them that owning that weapon (and using it when necessary...) is a fundamental part of their identity... that it won't result in more and more intense violence.
Like with many widespread societal issues, you can't just ignore the symptoms and try to cure the actual problem - and certainly nor can you do the opposite, as you say - you need to fix both.
