Arizona sounds like a scary place to live. The guy who wrote the article said he has had a gun pulled on him numerous times. Thats just crazy, and not something I could ever imagine. Any of you live in the South? Is Arizona that bad?
I live in the south, and not a college town like thenewgreen. There are a lot of gun nuts, and a lot more who have guns because having guns is a thing people do, but people getting guns pulled on them is very uncommon, as is people getting shot. I think that might have something to do with gun control looking so sinister to people here. People going around shooting each other isn't a problem here, so alternate explanations look more plausible.
I would imagine it's a far more common experience to have a gun pulled on you in Urban areas of any geographical region of the US than in the South, generally. I, fortunately, have never had this experience, but I know many people here in my fair city (Detroit) who have. I can think of at least 10 friends or acquaintances off the top of my head who have had this happen to them. Gun laws are about politics; gun violence is not.
I live in the "south," not the south-west. I've only been here for about 2 years but I've never had a gun pulled on me. I would be willing to wager that Charlie Bertsch's experience is thankfully a rare one. I don't doubt that it happened and does happen still to others, but the crazy people that treat guns/violence with such reckless abandon are in the extreme minority.