I guess I'll be the voice of opposition here. Unlike a lot of you, I live in Georgia and own guns. My family, friends and co-workers also own guns.

I currently only own a small 9mm handgun. I'm licensed to carry it concealed on me and do frequently. To get that license, I had to have a clean record, be signed off by a judge and have my fingerprints filed with the GBI and FBI from the local sheriffs office. I've been vetted similarly to what any police officer has gone through.

In the past I've owned a Bushmaster XM-15 E2S, a so-called AR-15 style "assault weapon" probably very similar to what was used in the shootings. I know a lot about weapons and the AR-15 platform in particular. To non gun owners, they do look like scary black military rifles but they're only semi-automatic (one round each time you pull the trigger) and are classified as "varmint" guns for civilians. That means it's illegal to hunt large game (like deer) with them a lot of places because they don't have the stopping power. The reason our military uses the same round (5.56 NATO/.223 civilian) is because they decided it was easier to give our troops a small round they can carry more of than train them all to be proficient marksmen.

To be truthful, your average deer hunting rifle has a lot more stopping power than an AR-15 and a skilled shooter can fire even a bolt-action rather rapidly. It's a misconception that the AR-15 platform is any more deadly just because of its appearance.

When politicians have tried to ban the AR-15 platform, they did it by picking out features at random and trying to regulate any weapon with those features. It's kind of a mess. For some reason they chose things like the handguard to pick on, which keeps that barrel from burning your hand after its been fired and the retractible stock which does nothing but allow you to adjust the rifle to be more comfortable for different shooters body types. It's about what you would expect when someone tries to regulate something they've made no attempt to understand.

I can argue about gun from a million different angles but it comes down to these things for me:

— Every living thing on this planet has some form of defense. We as humans use tools. I don't see how you can possibly consider it smart to take away our only method of defense without providing an adequate alternative. The last time we called the police it took over 5 minutes for them to arrive and they aren't responsible for protecting individuals (Warren v. District of Columbia). That means you are responsible for yourself.

— Criminals will always be able to access the things we "ban" (see: drugs, prostitution, et. al.) so any laws would only have an effect of disarming law-abiding citizens.

— It's too late. We have as many guns in the U.S. as people. It would cost billions in law-enforcement work to even collect a fraction of those. It would also probably lead to a number of unnecessary violent encounters.

— It's treating the symptom. Humanity will always have violence but if you really want to reduce these incidents we would work on the cause. We don't know a lot about the most recent incident yet but we do have huge issues with access to mental healthcare (and healthcare in general) in this country. We also have large problems with poverty and cultural issues.