Then explain to me why Chicago's -- which is home to some of the strictest gun laws in the US -- Southside faces mass shootings on a regular basis (the media ignores these)? Regular, law-abiding citizens, especially young African Americans in the city's Southside, have to jump through a series of hoops to get a gun, let alone carry one. As a result, they are left defenseless...meanwhile, its business-as-usual for all the gangs, which don't seem to have any issues buying illegal firearms at competitive prices.

As for your "simply common sense" remark: the vast, heavily-statistically significant majority of gun-related deaths and homicides in the US are committed with a handgun.

And in regards to "get a fucking taser, a damn slingshot" -- not sure I agree with you there, but I also think there's a cultural gap here. The USA is unique in that the right to bare arms is enshrined in our founding documents, in the Constitution. It was no accident that the Founding Fathers made this the 2nd amendment right after the 1st (free speech, free press, etc.). The 2nd Amendment was not created to ensure hunting and sport shooting, and it wasn't primarily focused on a crazy man breaking into your house. The 2nd Amendment was made to ensure that the public has the means to defend its freedom and private property were the Government to ever go usurpatious.

Now, I'm not some paranoid who thinks the US government will go usurpatious any time soon; rather, I just wanted to illustrate why the constitutional right to bare arms is no fundamental and sacrosanct in the American psyche.