Technology

The first half of your comment I agree with completely.

And even the second half I think is basically accurate, but it may also miss the point.

but even if you magically disappeared every gun in the country, the problems that mess people up so bad they get violent would remain.

So yeah, I think people would still get violent, for sure. The question is, how many people can they hurt when that happens? I mean, I recognize the impossibility of this, but if you could magically disappear every gun in the country, we would pretty quickly see a very different society begin to emerge. For starters, there would be much less murder across the board, less gang violence, less domestic violence, fewer murders by cops, no school shooting, probably even fewer suicides. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would definitely have a huge impact.

But there would be additional effects too... The relationship between cops and the general public would begin to change drastically. There would be much less anger toward the police and the police would have fewer reasons to fear the public. The current cop policy of shoot first if you feel threatened is both completely unacceptable and simultaneously totally rational (if they assume anyone could have a gun). But without guns in people's hands, (including the cops') we'd have a completely different dynamic in so many otherwise dangerous situations.

All that said, you're right that economic inequity will always lead to social interest and violence. So like I said, this wouldn't solve everything. But on the other hand, getting rid of guns entirely wouldn't be a bad way to go, it would certainly heal more than it would hurt.