There are some basic truths about the entire gun debate that most people either completely miss or refuse to acknowledge. I'll try to list them here, as I see them. Some may disagree, so I'd like to get some feedback on where exactly anyone thinks I may have gone wrong.

1 - You cannot "ban" guns.

Even if we assume that a government was capable of completely banning firearms, they would very likely need to do it by having firearms themselves. They can't exactly go around taking guns away from people who have guns with billy clubs and tasers. We know that passing some magical law will not result in guns disappearing, so they will need to be found, confiscated, and destroyed. Never mind that finding them all - in and of itself - would be a daunting and essentially impossible task, but forcing unwilling people to hand them over would require force. What kind of force? Deadly force. And how would deadly force manifest itself against a person with a gun? It would be another person with a gun or multiple people with guns - or something even deadlier.

And if such guns were ever eliminated, can we reasonably expect that government agents will simply destroy their own supply? That they will not want to retain the upper-hand over the newly disarmed societies that they rule over with coercion?

2 - You cannot put toothpaste back in the tube.

Firearms cannot be un-invented. No matter how hard a government may try, the fact that firearms can be easily made again will undoubtedly result in more of them existing, even if it was possible to remove all of the ones currently in existence. So, unless there will be a force of agents scrutinizing all people in all places and preventing them from even acquiring the materials to create such firearms, they will continue to be made - whether they are legally banned or not. This leads us to...

3 - Criminals do not abide by laws.

This is a no-brainer. If you want to eliminate the possibility of criminals owning firearms, then you'll need to eliminate firearms entirely - which is practically impossible, as already mentioned. Criminals will find a way to acquire them - whether by theft or via black markets from other "criminals" who produce such firearms, despite the legal ramifications.

So, guns will exist and bad people will likely have them, which leads to...

4 - The gun is the great equalizer.

Firearms allow the most physically weak in society to adequately protect themselves against those who are physically dominant. You don't need to be a mammoth of a human, a martial arts expert, or a skilled swordsman to defend your life or the lives of your friends and family. Imagine a 6' tall man weighing over 200 pounds attempting to beat a smaller man to death with a club - or trying to abduct (or worse) a 5'4" and 110-pound woman. Imagine a lynch mob of 25 people walking to your front door as your wife and children cower inside. How do you suppose such people could adequately defend themselves from being beaten to death or kidnapped/raped/murdered? Would you be willing to forfeit your right to defend your life because you don't like guns or because guns are just too deadly?

If we already acknowledge that guns can't be realistically eliminated, then such a proposition is simply putting anyone who cannot physically defend themselves at an unnecessary and inevitable disadvantage.

So, in essence - banning guns is a fantasy and it's one of the most explicit rejections of the right to life and self-defense that I've ever heard. But the former is so absurd that the latter is basically an ancillary argument. Guns aren't going anywhere. The best you can do is disarm law-abiding people, which defeats the entire purpose.