The situation in the US is of course different to that in the UK and other countries - what works there isn't automatically going to work in the US. There does seem to me to be a need in the US for a sensible discussion on it, which seems unlikely given how polarised the country is, because the reality is there is no way to realistically take all the guns in the country out of circulation and there are genuine reasons why people should have them but there is also a reason why guns are the weapon of choice for killing with most of the time and death is rarely a good thing.

I agree with you in general - guns should be restricted in the type available, I don't see why someone should need anything beyond rifles and shotguns generally though in the US given the prevelance of handguns already in circulation a ban on sales for them is unrealistic. Someway of making sure the person getting the gun is competent to own a gun seems a pretty basic requirement to me - in terms of age, mental state and training in safely handling firearms. In my opinion there should be responsibility as well - if you own a gun then you have a responsibility to make sure that gun isn't used in criminal activity, both by keeping it secured and reporting if it is stolen... and following on from that to me it makes sense to both make it a legal requirement that all guns sold are registered and that anyone with a gun must register it (good luck to a politication trying to sell that one though to a lot of the pro-gun crowd though).

I would guess any debate on the issue will see the extremists on both sides drown out the sensible voices in the centre though.