I don't think it's so much getting rid of the guns that is the problem, but the culture of 'right to own' which appears to be foated by the gun industries desire to sell their product.
There is a very disturbing American journalist named Mary Ellen Synon living in the Next county down from here, Kerry, who, demanded that it was the "duty" of every rural-dwelling family to arm itself.
This was sort;y after Traveller, John Ward had been executed by a farmer who believed he was being burgled.
The farmer, finding Ward in his farmyard, shot and wounded him,
and as he lay on the ground, beat him with a fence-post.
Finding himself out of ammunition, he want into the house, reloaded his shotgun and administered the coupe-de-grace - he was acquitted by the jury.
Mary Ellen Synon had previously achieved fame when her articles were dropped by he national press when she described Irish paralympics competitors as "grotesque" and the event itself "perverse"
God save us all from such mentality.
Jim Carroll