“...doubt if you can ever convince someone so profoundly afraid of inanimate objects of that, however.”
You’ve touched on two important aspects. The gungrabbers are afraid of guns. It’s simply not something they understand. To them, a gun is something to be feared. To most gun owners it’s a tool. Respected perhaps, but not feared.
The second thing is akin. The only experience they have with guns is violence on TV or in the movies. Guns are to be feared and have no legitimate purpose.
BTW, out where I live, it would take the police 30 minutes to drive here assuming they weren’t otherwise busy. Of course, a gun grabber would say my choice of living is mine and I have to bear all the costs.
A twenty minute response time was from fifteen years ago. The response time here has probably changed. The donut shop extant then has closed and a new one opened slightly farther away. The perp had long since remembered an important appointment elsewhere.
I have long believed that a course in home economics should be required for graduation from high school. Gun safety and handling revolvers, pistols and shotguns should be in the curriculum. Other topics would include how to do laundry, how to make a budget, tax form preparation and the short class on vacuum cleaner repair.
The last would take about one class period and involve demonstrating how to change the bags and drive belts on the most common types of vacuum cleaners. That would prepare the student to fix about 80% of the "broken" vacuums in the US.