I call hypocricy on that. The NRA is a mouthpiece for gun manufacturers and their primary purpose is keeping gun sales up. The culture of paranoia that so permeates American society is partially fostered by the NRA and its political allies because it increases profits. The more threatened and unsafe people feel (from their own government, from random criminals entering their homes in order to kill them), the more guns are sold.
And if an America where the only murders committed are done with knives, feet and hands were possible, I'd say go for it. Your murder rate will still drop significantly. Unlike those other means, guns are specifically designed to kill people, potentially lots of people, quickly without giving them the opportunity to resist or flee and call for help.
I'm not sure about better people, but LaPierre's statement that the answer to gun violence is more guns and the paranoid excuse that guns are needed to keep control of the gubment would be seen as crazy in most other western societies. The US doesn't really have a surplus of crazy people, but as a society they accept, embrace and even allow a certain brand of craziness to be promoted in order to shape general culture.
The gun restriction isn't to make it impossible to cause a massacre, just one hell of a lot harder. And making it impossible for people to shoot more than a few bullets without having to pause to reload would be a nice place to start. There seems to be this attitude that if you can't prevent every gun-related bloodbath, there's no point in trying to prevent any at all. That attitude has to stop.
Yeah, in Switzerland lots of people own a gun since they don't have a standing army there...just armed militia. What they don't own is ammo. That's stored in a separate place, away from the home. Switzerland may have lots of guns, but they regulate things pretty strictly at the same time unlike the "anything goes"-attitude in the US.
Switzerland is an example of a country who actually implemented the 2nd amendment as it was originally intended. Armed people are militia members as Switzerland has no standing army. In Switzerland, they have lots of guns at home, but they're not allowed to keep any ammo...that's stored elsewhere. Back when people (militia members) were still allowed to store their ammo at home, it had to be in specially sealed packaging and inspections were made regularly to check if the ammo had been used without authorization. In a way, Switzerland (despite having lots of gun owners) has always had really tight gun regulation. US gun advocates would NOT want to move to Switzerland's model.
Here's the problem with your statement. There are plenty of ways to kill people outside of gun use, but most of those ways are far less efficient, far more failure-prone and far less suitable for consideration in the impulsive heat of the moment. They exist, but the majority of lunatics can't be bothered with them. Proof? We have stricter gun control in other countries and yet, school kids aren't bleached or home-made bombed to death left and right. The lack of a quick and easy means of inflicting carnage does make a difference. Most murders are done on an impulse anyway and guns are ideal to quickly kill with a minimum of preparation and effort.
Laws are always made with the present (and not the future) situation in mind. Your founding fathers weren't crazy about the existence of a standing army and figured keeping local militias armed was a better idea. Eventually you got a standing army anyway (and one equipped to utterly obliterate your populance whether they're armed or not), but never got rid of the "armed" part of the armed militia. Only in American politics is the "Tyrannical Overlord"-argument given any credibility whatsoever, which is kind of sad. If you want to avoid Tyrannical Overlords, vote to keep them away. The US has the lowest voter turnout in any western nation. It's more effective than purchasing assault weapons who are of no use against drones equipped with hellfire missiles anyway.
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