**EDIT**

As I was writing this, my wife holollered "Another shooting". It's madness!

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I am totally with you. I was born and raised in Italy, surrounded by guns (some legal, some not so much). Then I joined the italian Army as a fresh faced Second Lieutenant and I got to shoot all the usual suspects and then some (including a nuclear missile, if that counts).

I served in a Cold War NATO base next door to our US Army mirror units (Lance Missiles).

You are 100% correct that no one, except those on duty, strolled around base armed. If we lost a single round during training, you'd see hundreds of soldiers combing the training grounds as if looking for diamonds (which is why I always carried a few spares).

As a missile company we were supposed to be way back from the front lines, consequently my personal weapon was an ancient M1 Garand (It was 1980, not the 60s). Something that made me feel unloved at the time, but I would trade for one tomorrow if I could. I grew to love that rifle.

I like guns, pretty much the way I love my skill saw and power drill when I have to do some cutting or drive a screw.

However, as someone born in Italy but 98% American by now, when I read the 2nd amendment, I read it in its entirety. The "well regulated militia" part is there for a reason. It tells me that the "framers" didn't think every yahoo could go to Walmart strapped with a weapon of war.

That said, I can see how even someone like me wouldn’t mind have a rifle capable of putting 30 rounds downrange as fast as I can pull the trigger. "Better to have it and not need it..." and all that.

What I don't understand is the refusal of conducting background checks or take any measures to prevent crazies and idiots from going around and shooting people. Why?

At the very least, I would think that passing a basic gun safety test would be the minimum requirement for owning any gun, at the very least so people don't shoot their foot or family jewels off (those that have them).

Here is an idea: you can have a 5 round magazine on your AR15. As you pass more tests, and prove you are not out of your mind to at least a couple of human instructors, you get to load your rifle with 10 rounds.

In fact, given a serious process to assure you are not a menace to society, I wouldn’t care if people owned a Ma Deuce. Just show me that

a) You have a need for it and

b) You are of sound mind and capable of handling it.

A screening process like that would go a long way filtering for potential mass murderers.

Would it eliminate mass shootings? No, but it would make the process that much harder and filter out some impulsive shooters.

For those that complain that a licensing system would be too onerous on regular people, have you checked the price of long guns lately?

if you can drop $1K on a AR 15 and the relative tacticool accessories, you can drop $100 on a license fee.

We would need to come up with reasonable parameters for refusing any individual from receiving the license (I can already see how black people and other minorities would be unjustly discriminated from owning a firearm), but I think we can manage it.