If you look at the politics and demographics, it is clear the areas that are proud of their guns - the same areas that are proud of their ignorance and intolerance … the bulk of states between the two coasts. And guess where most gun violence happens? Not in the inner cities, but in THOSE areas …
WHat? Definitely interested to see where you are getting your statistics. Everything I've read suggests per capita violent crime is far higher in coastal cities than in the more rural center of the country. Like it or not, gun-nut hicks in red states with looser gun laws are not the ones committing the most violent gun crime. Even if you just look at rampages like this one, which are a fraction of the total gun related homicides, they don't seem to be happening at schools in Bumfuck, West Virginia, and the profiles of the shooters are consistently young, male, socially,disengaged, bright and well educated, not the intolerant, ignorant gun toting stereotype you are suggesting.
Certainly within the US, the relationship between gun laws, gun culture, and gun crime is not as simple as "Ignorant backwards NRA members -> gun crime." If you could snap your fingers and vaporize every civilian gun in North America, sure, violent crime would plummet.* But short of magic, sequestering guns in the US on the scale necessary is a near political (including Constitutional), cultural, and logistical impossibility, it's not just the gun lobby holding us back. And you know, I'm glad that the constitution is not a flimsy thing that can be easily changed at a whim in a crisis (theoretically of course). Even compared to similar laws in other Anglo countries, the relative staying power and absolutism of the 1st amendment, for example, is for me a great defense of American constitutionalism.
I think the more disturbing cultural context of this tragedy is actually not gun proliferation but the mass media treatment of it. Since the incident, you can't turn on the news, look at the front page of the newpaper or open a facebook newsfeed without being hammered by the events. For corporate media, it really is the perfect story: emotional, violent, and with continuously emerging details to keep an audience coming back. But you have to think about why hopeless, isolated and mentally unstable young men choose to go out in this way. I am sure for many of them, the instant national (and international fame) is a huge part of it. These killers become household names within hours of their deaths, while the ones who killed only themselves barely ever register on the national stage. The next Adam Lanza may be watching the news right now, taking note. Unfortunately, there is really no feasible way to combat this problem with laws, only cultural evolution.
But really, if you want drastic, cut and dry national level measures in the wake of this tragedy, I think the simplest, easiest, most feasible and most effective for the US would be a requirement that educational institutions have several onsite faculty with training and access to guns themselves, for emergency purposes. The potential death tolls of incidents like these would probably be far lower, and the deterrents to potential shooters greater. Such a measure might leave a bad taste in the mouth, but in terms of actually saving lives, I think it would be better than dwelling on other various fantasies.
*I'm under the impression that Mao ended his nation's Opium problem in a similar spirit: he shot or send to camps everybody who touched the stuff. For a variety of reasons, this is not the type of move you could pull in the US, regardless of its effectiveness.