You do realize that if you have a fifteen-round magazine and wander into certain states with it, you're a felon, right?
Most first time incarcerees are between 17 and 23, mostly young guys who really could give a sh!t less what society and you think of them. On release, with no job prospects (no one wants to hire an uneducated, unskilled worker just released from prison), many young people gravitate to the very dopes they were incarcerated with and put the "lessons" they learned in the Fagan School to what they consider good use.
It's not an excuse, but after all we're talking young, dumb and full of ---. Hey, if these kids were smart they wouldn't have done whatever it was that got them there in the first place.
Therefore, statistically, most first time offenders become recidivists.
Eventually 99% of these dopes meet a girl that actually cares and start a family or just get so damned petrified by what they see as they progress though the system [if you call going from the county jail to state prison progress :O)], that they "straighten out".
It is well known in prison circles that the best cure for all except the professionals and the insane, is called "30", in other words maturity.
Everyone agrees that professionals do not abide by law and will arm themselves under any and all circumstances, and nobody wants the insane to be within 100 yards of a gun.
But should young, stupid people who have outgrown their lawlessness or been cowed into submission be denied the right to protect their families? I don't think so.
Pros and guns:
I was a pallbearer for a Boston "wiseguy" about twenty odd years ago. The funeral parlor was jambed with guys from both sides of the street (cops and robbers. Hey, it was Boston.), and everybody was armed to the teeth.
"Ya neva know who ya gonna run inta at these friggen tings."
All rehabilitation comes from within.