This is not just about Sandy Hook, or a mall in Oregon, or a theater in Aurora. This is about the future. Yes, firearms will always be available to those who want them badly enough, but if they are made illegal the prices of those weapons sold illegally will jump exponentially. They will be made harder to get. And, at this point, the general public in this country has demonstrated that, while they may trust themselves with a weapon, they cannot control who else might use their weapons for terrible crimes such as those occurring at every public shooting so far.
2nd Amendment rights to bear arms were added to our government 221 years ago, when owning a weapon meant being able to shoot once or twice every minute with inaccurate lead shot. The fact is, times have changed.