It's sad but it's understandable.
People aren't exposed to firearms/firearm safety, so they fear what they don't understand. It's cliché but 100% human.
This will sound weird, but I tend to think of guns like I do nuclear power. Both are dangerous when used incorrectly but using isolated instances of tragedy to completely dismiss something is just inconceivably ignorant.
I genuinely wonder what the country or even the world would be like if we had just embraced teaching people things like how to handle a firearm or just BASIC GOD DAMN SCIENCE.
I apologize, I think I'm just nervously ranting at you because I'm paranoid about what happens between now and January. Don't mind me.