A different take on "the gun debate" - an existential, not political, problem

The thing is, I've seen this "gun debate" go around in circles under several different administrations now, & it's the same pattern every time:

1) Some madman (or mad-woman) gets their hands on a firearm (or several), & goes & shoots up some (almost always innocent) people (almost always in one of these magical "gun-free zones" where the anti-bullet force-field never works when it's needed for some reason.)

2) People will say "it's time for "the conversation" on "the gun issue", but then it's the same old over & over - Leftists will self-embarrassingly demonstrate their massive ignorance of even the basic workings of firearms while hypocritically claiming they just want "common sense gun control", both sides will shout bumper-sticker slogans at each other, the Left will try to roll out some hideously Orwellian infringements on our rights to defend ourselves, in response to which, people on the Right (& increasingly on the Center) will buy up more guns & ammo, & more people will join the NRA (like I recently did) - and nothing will budge.

3) Thus, after considering the pattern above, I'm inclined to say this goes deeper than a mere political issue. Politics, for all its dirtiness is the art of solving issues that affect our society & doing so partially through compromise. As there has been essentially a deadlock on this issue for years, regardless of administration in power, I don't think what we have here is really a political problem though it may manifest itself as such on the surface). I think what we have is an existential problem, & the existential problem is such -

Life is suffering, being is fragile, and horrific tragedies happen to innocent people. And the *best* solutions we've been able to come up with for it are imperfect tools in the hands of imperfect people.

This axiom predates guns, the 2nd Amendment, semiautomatics, what have you. This is something our ancestors had to contend with since before we were fully human.