[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

None of which have made these children safer from traffic accidents than many other causes including accidental fatalities involving guns (Latest stats I could find was 650 vs 102 in 2011). On the other hand we have over 20,000 gun laws on the nations law books including laws against shooting children.

Actually, I would argue that they have all made children safer than they would have been had they not been introduced. Furthermore the continued improvement of car safety measures mean that lives will continue to be saved in the future. Observe this graph:



Let's look at that timeline and take some events from it, from Wikipedia:

In 1968, the precursor agency to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's first Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards took effect. These required shoulder belts for left and right front-seat vehicle occupants, side marker lights, collapsible steering columns, and other safety features. 1969 saw the addition of head restraints for front outboard passengers, addressing the problem of whiplash in rear-end collisions. These safety requirements did not apply to vehicles classified as "commercial," such as light-duty pickup trucks. Thus manufacturers did not always include such hardware in these vehicles, even though many did passenger-car duty.

In 1979 NHTSA began crash-testing popular cars and publishing the results, to inform consumers and encourage manufacturers to improve the safety of their vehicles. Initially, the US NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) crash tests examined compliance with the occupant-protection provisions of FMVSS 208. Over the subsequent years, this NHTSA program was gradually expanded in scope. In 1997, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) was established to test new vehicles' safety performance and publish the results for vehicle shoppers' information.[43] The NHTSA crash tests are presently operated and published as the U.S. branch of the international NCAP programme.

In 1984 New York State passed the first US law requiring seat belt use in passenger cars. Seat belt laws have since been adopted by all 50 states, except for New Hampshire.[45] and NHTSA estimates increased seat belt use as a result save 10,000 per year in the USA.[

Now you can see that around those times, fatalities in automative incidents decline, they then will balance out again a little bit, but generally speaking the trend is downward. I have no doubt that it will spike up again, I believe that the current number is around 40,000 but it's not particularly likely that it will reach the heights of the 1960/70s.

So to get back to your original question.

Well? Are six hundred and fifty dead children acceptable? Just the price we should pay for our love of rapid personal transit?

Absolutely not, and that is why we continue to make cars safer, as we continue to make aircraft safer and trains safer, and every single thing else safer. The goal is to create a society where you are unable to harm someone else, but to allow individuals to place themselves in perilous situations for personal enjoyment if they wish...so long as it is not at the expense of someone else.
So let's put this way, if we are still striving, to this day to make our world safer, then what is the harm in continuing to make gun ownership safer with the introduction of licenses and mandatory training courses? You don't just get in a car and drive away, or just pick up the flight stick of an aircraft and head out, you need to get training, you need to prove that you can operate the vehicle without endangering yourself or others. Why should this not be law for firearms? Why should it not be law that you have to prove that you can operate your firearm safely and keep it safely, away from those who are not licensed to operate it?
Surely this is a better option than attempting to ban firearms outright and plunging the US into anarchy because of it.