I have friends who were in high school in the 1960s and 1970s who have told me they used to take guns and rifles to their school because they were part of shooting clubs or were going to get something from the pot after school. And there weren't school shootings.

I asked one of these friends about violence and he said, "Oh, we'd get into fights sometimes. But we knew the difference between throwing a punch vs. shooting someone."

Of course bullying still occurred, but this was before social media and at a time when most fathers were in the house, when most kids had some church or temple affiliation, when kids were more active outdoors, and there was more community support.

Kids were also a lot safer - again, I even remember being able to ride my bike for miles when I was 12, and I grew up in New York City. But during daylight hours I was still safe. Now? No one lets their kids disappear for hours. But talk to people my age or older - most of us did that.

Some things have gotten better in modern times, but some things have gotten worse. There is no reason to take a gun away from someone who is only going to use it for a valid reason - hunting for the pot, target practice, or to defend someone from, say, a rapist. I have two friends, women, who were able to escape rape because they had a gun. Of course, they had also gone through extensive training in how to safely use them. I also had a male friend who was able to save his child due to having a gun.

Also, in modern times we've had people stabbed to death (the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands as well as many attacks in Germany etc.), people killed with pressure cookers full of nails (The Boston marathon killers) or people killed by a guy driving an SUV like the guy who killed 6 people in Waukesha.