Or that all gun owners are just an accident waiting to happen?
There's a lot of truth to this.
All gun owners are an accident waiting to happen.
All people with functional sex organs are an unplanned pregnancy waiting to happen.
All drivers are an accident waiting to happen.
All people who drink alcohol are an accident waiting to happen.
Does that mean that all gun owners WILL have an accident, or MUST have an accident? No, of course not, but it does mean that it's a possibility. Drivers don't have to cause accidents, people don't have to have unplanned pregnancies, people who drink don't have to cause accidents while drunk.
People can drink in public without being a problem, people can drive safely, people can use birth control/self control to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Sure, people sometimes screw up, and bad things can happen as a result, but society accepts that as the cost of allowing people to live their lives with freedom. Sometimes people intentionally misuse alcohol, cars, their sex organs, etc. and then they are punished, if they are caught and convicted. Why should firearms be any different?
I find it interesting that the general perception is that for drivers, the solution is education and responsible use. For alcohol use the solution is education and responsible use. For unplanned pregnancies, the solution is education and acting responsibly. For criminal misuse, the solution is to punish those who break the law. But for some reason, when it comes to guns, many people want to propose abstinence as the solution for preventing accidents and want to "pre-punish" gun owners by restricting their actions.
And yes, in case it's not obvious, I am in favor of educating people so that they can be safe and act responsibly. I'm not in favor of making that education mandatory in the case of things that are rights and not privileges because of the potential for government to use that mandatory education as a tool to restrict rights. But I do think that it's very important for people to
voluntarily take whatever steps are required to insure that they have the knowledge to act responsibly and safely. And I understand that there are some people out there who need to but won't. That's just life...