The very people that could effect change--this "red state" voting block--are the ones perpetuating the culture which is at the root of the gun issue. All the window dressing reactive solutions (less doors, no trenthcoats, and even more guns) are farcical discussion points. There is an industry and power structure that wants you afraid and violent. As long as one believes that weaponry is a core ethical right and an essential part of modern American life then you are perpetuating the culture and environment and psychology that begets shooting and oppression.
Yes, regulating guns is an essential first step to limiting the MEANS for public violence. But a change in religious, societal, and economic values is essential to changing the MOTIVES for public violence.
You can't have a class of embittered, impoverished people who are angry at "others" and who do not take personal responsibility but instead listen to the propaganda of institutions (church, state, NRA, etc) and arm themselves, and then expect there not to be violence.
There is much discussion about shifting blame from guns to mental illness...but the mental illness isn't just those crazy people you point to out on the street muttering to themselves. The mental illness is a culture that adores the instruments of destruction and who do not understand themselves and their motivations for doing so. The mental illness is far and wide as those individuals who get pleasure from shooting and killing animals; who get deep excitement by watching violence in media; who confuse loyalty/patriotism and obedience and do not empathize with the victims of military action but instead revel in flag waving and American might; and that mock and loath segments of society they call "weak" who reject the ethics of oneupmanship, of hierarchy, of authoritarianism, of dominance, and of treating all social transactions as confrontations to be won through any means possible. This is a broad accusation, but the real mental illness that is dangerous and manifests in violence is something that those blaming it do not see in themselves.