As for the discussions above:
...But this is important: There has been "a remarkable decrease in violent crime and gun crime in the U.S. since the early 1990s, even though the number of firearms has increased by about 10 million every year," Center for Research in Crime and Justice Director James Jacobs told Time magazine. "There's no simple correspondence between the number of firearms in private hands and the amount of gun crime, and I often find it somewhat strange that there seems to be a perception that things are worse than ever when, in reality, things are really better than they've been for decades."
And:
"Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons."
OK, so we are all ignorant of the finer points between a rifle and a machine gun. That is not the point. The point is, rapid fire, large caliber, high volume magazines and rapid fire weapons allow some shooters to kill too many people too fast.
Framing the argument as, "I used to think ... blah blah blah" suggests that all gun regulations are misguided. Fine, tell us then what one needs to do to slow down a rapid fire murderer in a crowd? And don't tell me a good guy with a gun because there are only rare cases this has ever stopped a mass shooting before the police arrived.
To frame it as we are all ignorant sidesteps the issue, it doesn't address it.
As for the violence is going down as gun sales go up, the problem is multifaceted. We have 15-20% of the voting public supporting a jerk for POTUS that wants to ban all visiting Muslims from entering the country. There have been too frequent mass shootings from mentally-ill individuals to disgruntled ex-boyfriends in the last couple years.
The point is rapid fire murderers are one problem. Gun regulations can at least cut back on those and the public is at least interested in stopping such needless carnage.
Better prevention of mentally ill shooters, good investigative efforts dismantling terrorist cult groups and cutting back on rapid fire firepower are needed.
Just telling people they don't understand the difference between a rifle and a machine gun is meaningless chatter to distract from the actual solutions which might cause gun profiteers to sell fewer rapid fire guns.
Do we need other measures? Absolutely. Black and white framing of gun regulation problems is unhelpful except to the gun-lobby.
