LOL @ the outrage, and ROLF @ the left-wing outrage. Oh no, banning guns, so terrible. 
It's a cultural thing. I don't really understand it either.
I'm from rural America and don't understand it. It's fun to shoot a gun but if you're concerned about constructing responsible public policy, it's quite clear that gun ownership is a terrible vice and a not a virtue. It's amazing to me that a few pulls of the trigger is sufficient to cloud people's judgement on this issue...
I understand liberals being aghast at this proposal but leftists? What is wrong with you people, we're supposed to believe that the idea of "negative liberties" grounded in 18th century classical liberal thought are nonsense...
I'm not sure what positive liberty you think is entailed in a blanket handgun ban. The Constitution has never been a document that has taken rights away from people in the long-term. It has always been used as a facilitator to expand them. Having an amendment that explicitly says "You can't do/have X" seems like a very HP move.
My personal view on guns and gun ownerships has always been that if I ever reached a point where I, like so many NRA supporters, felt I not only needed access to the biggest guns I could get but needed to carry them around with me everywhere, I'd be less concerned about my right to do that and
more concerned about what has happened to a society that makes me or anyone else feel like they need to carry a deadly weapon with them everywhere.
While it's not an explicit Constitutional right, I and most people believe they have a reasonable right to a little thing called public safety. Gun nuts rant incessantly about how they have a right to defend themselves. I don't think I should
have to protect or defend myself when I'm doing something as innocuous as going to school or shopping at the mall. In those situations, I am indisputably in the public sphere where public safety is the responsibility of the state. If there is a public safety deficit, the solution is
more public safety - more police and other "good" people with guns. These are not situations that are analogous to having a murder or a burglar break into your private home, where your own authority trumps that of the public. It's part of the reason I vigorously oppose concealed carry and open carry laws.
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