when did I ever say I was against improving car safety? More than half of all fatalities occur on rural roads with no medians, so I don't see how you think my suggestion wouldn't have an enormous impact. If the road can't be widened to allow a median, by all means lower the speed limit. Make exceptions for roads with minimal traffic.
The fact is car fatalities per mile driven have been cut in half over the past 40 years.
And self driving cars should have a huge impact on road safety.
And gun fatalaties have been more than halved in the past 20 years.
The issue you ignore is the cost of making cars safer through your suggested means (widening road margins, self-driving cars) imply a significant increase in cost and maintenance. Who fronts that cost? Who provides the man hours? In the case of self-driving cars, whose responsible for fatal errors, the manufacturer, the government, or some private company in charge of monitoring and maintaining traffic flow? How are self-driving cars implemented to the entire base of the population? We're likely 30 years away from that even being a reasonable possibility. Are the deaths of the millions of Americans between now and then acceptable? I'd argue yes, it's a tragic and unfortunate side effect of mass transportation, but I'm not advocating for stricter gun control on a similar premise.
You refuse to take the side of reducing speed limits to 40mph, not only because it would be an odd and unpopular stance that Max is trying to force you into, but because you know, inherently, it would be very inconvenient for your life, and you wouldn't want it to happen, regardless of how much safer it might be for the population as a whole. Yet you willingly bandy about a desire for increasing laws and regulations on guns because you aren't a gun owner, and such regulations wouldn't have a direct and immediate impact on your life. My guess is a guy who rides a bike to and from work and doesn't own a car would be far more agreeable to a reduction in speed limits nationwide. In his mind, it saves more lives, and provides him no further inconvenience.
I'm not a gun owner, though a few in my family are. I have a 7 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. While I have no doubt I could safely house a gun in a safe in my house, I live in a nice neighborhood, I don't hunt, and I'm not afraid of a home invasion. But I'm very familiar with gun collectors and their lifestyles. I also understand the purpose of the 2nd amendment, and the significant but subtle protection it provides the civilians as a whole from our government or foreign governments in the face of war. While I'll agree with anyone that any significant threat or attack from either entity seems distant and unlikely today, that does not mean it will be true in even 10 or 20 years, much less 100 years from now. But passing laws to remove or impair gun rights are highly unlikely to ever be repealed, so each step in that direction erodes the rights guaranteed by our forefathers, which seems like something we shouldn't be rushing to achieve.
Lastly, to the end of an assault weapon ban, it would be good if people looked up the laws regarding assault weapons in this country. I pointed out earlier that assault weapons cause very very few fatalities in this country. Part of the reason is due to the increased control and regulations on these weapons which already exist. There are strict laws for how the weapons need to be maintained in the home, how the ammo is to be housed, and at any point a federal official can show up at your door and demand to see the weapon. It is a serious crime if you can't account for its location on demand. People looking to use weapons for criminal activity probably don't want to invite the increased scrutiny on their lives. However, the responsible gun owners bear the burden regardless of the cost. At the end of the day, assault weapons account for 1.6% of gun-related deaths and injuries, and the number of gun related deaths and injuries, on a national scale, is already incredibly low.