They are not dangerous "on their own" any more than an iron or a knife or an automobile or a bottle of tequila is dangerous on their on. All of those are dangerous in the hands of a bad person, an uneducated (about that object) person, or a mentally ill person. The object does not have inherent danger.

Yes and those things are (in my opinion) regulated proportionally to their "level of danger".

You can't anonymously own a car in the US, you can't (legally) buy one at a car convention then take it on the road without registering it. Larger knives have regulations and rules around who can buy them, and some are just illegal to own in many states. Tequila requires you to be over a certain age, and you can't buy it if you are visibly drunk.

These things are dangerous. Yes, they won't jump up and attack someone on their own, but even well educated sane good people have accidents with them, which is what I mean by these things being dangerous.

And just like with automobiles, I don't think banning them is the right move, but I do think requiring a "gun license" where you can prove that you know how to handle, store, and can show you have the skills to safely use a gun should be required, as well as registering and proving that you have a safe place to store them that is out of the reach of children, mentally ill adults, and theives.

Safe gun owners will need to do very little to get approved to continue owning guns, and many unsafe gun owners can be denied. Not to mention that increasing the "average" storage security would mean that less would be easily stolen reducing the number of unregistered guns available for purchase on a "black market".

One sticking point is gun owners seem completely unwilling to budge on any kind of gun registry -- which seems like a necessary starting point for any kind of accountability of ownership and an actual effective solution against straw purchases and illegal gun sales. Just putting this out here because I like how thoughtful your posts are and I am really stumped at finding a compromise -- ultimately I think there is no way to water down a gun registry (or even licensing) that the current gun lobby will accept, which is a disservice to safe gun owners.

That's what really sucks. For various reasons a gun registry will never really happen. It's too controversial due to America's past and founding.

I'm pretty sure that means we will either continue the path we are on now (which makes things "about" guns illegal, without making guns illegal or registering them), or we will leapfrog the registry and just outright ban most models or types or people from owning them.

Like you said many gun owners are letting perfect be the enemy of good here, and are unwilling to compromise on something that will allow them to keep guns for sport and self-defense in some situations. And that's going to lead to pressure building up to the point that their complains aren't going to matter, then they won't be listened to at all while the avalanche falls removing most or all gun rights.