The biggest problem with American football is that the helmets shouldn't be full shell helmets. Sectioned helmets would be able to provide just as much padding as full shell, while reducing the most dangerous part of football, getting headbutted by another player with the wrecking ball that was strapped to his head.
Someone else lamented that hockey doesn't allow checking until High School. And I honestly don't see the problem. I believe the actual time is in 7th grade they now allow, and it's pretty reasonable. There isn't really a reason to allow checking amongst 7 or 8 year olds, they couldn't really do it effectively and it wouldn't impact the game in a meaningful way which actually makes it more dangerous as they don't know what they are doing, while it is much easier to injure a 8 year old, than a 14 year old who has been playing hockey his entire life.
On people using prohibition as an example of why gun control wouldn't work, it's a pretty big stretch. Alcohol was something around 80-90% of the population drank at times or regularly. In addition, it's something that isn't very hard to produce, fermenting isn't a very difficult process. Further, alcohol relatively isn't very expensive, and it is easy to have a black market running if the item in question is a 10 dollar commodity. Lastly, law enforcement drank alcohol? They in fact liked alcohol, kind of makes it tough to make society to enforce a law they don't like, especially when citizens are the ones enforcing the law.
Guns, on the other hand are owned by likely less than 20% of the population, aren't something people widely used recreationally, nor tools that are manufactured to be used recreationally generally. Further, they aren't an addictive drug, no one goes to rehab from shooting firearms too much, and no one would go into withdraal if they haven't been to the firing range in awhile. They aren't very easy to manufacture at all. Unlike Alcohol, if you leave a hunk of iron in your shed for a few weeks, it will not ferment into a light carbine. This makes it generally more expensive, and incredibly more difficult to run a black market of.
There is still an extensive amount of illegal sale of guns, but this is partially due (I'm not sure how much of it) to legitimate gun suppliers waiving regulations and selling on a more lax basis.
And the argument of guns for safety purposes is idiotic. Obviously the state would be safer if there are no guns. If you want guns for safety purposes, then you should also be in heavy support of the slow dissolution of guns from society, and stronger measures taken against black market sale of firearms.
I'm not saying I'm in support of banning firearms, or that it would be easy, but safety isn't a reason to keep them. It would be hard and slow to get rid of them, but when has something being hard stop a country from doing what was right.
The gun issue boils down to a different argument. Is gun violence and crime worth having in order to have citizens with firearms, that in the case of a tyrannical government, or an imposing federal government, can arm themselves as a militia or guerilla force in order to protect their rights. This is the reason there is a right to bear arms in the constitution of the United States, and the only logical reason to have guns.
And if this is the purpose to have guns, putting a ban on magazine size, or assault weapons makes no sense. Why would you stifle the guns you allow your citizens to have if the point of them having weapons is so they can have just insurrections. Honestly, the two sides of the gun debate should be freedom to buy whatever guns, or no guns at all (not an immediate ban, but moving towards dissolution, immediate bans are stupid and never work.)
But this moves to another topic. Someone mentioned a interviewer asking a Japanese general about the invasion of the United States, they probably were referencing the interview with Yamamoto, the Japanese WWII admiral (the best one). And this is a good example of the real reason to have guns. But, like I said before, as technology and weapons technology increases, the efficacy of a citizen militia drops.
For instance, at the revolutionary war was won by a citizen militia, which armed and trained itself, in open battle against a professional army. This is no longer possible, and citizen militias are most effective in being guerilla units. This was better shown in WWII within occupied France, and now in modern day within Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not even a great example, as the US is tied in how harshly it could act to squash resistance. If a Kurtz was in command of US forces, and was willing to do anything necessary to destroy resistance, it could drop 70% in half a year.
So in this modern day and age, is it worthwhile to have firearms in order to have the ability to mobilize a guerilla force?
I don't know. I'm not educated enough to say.
I only support greater regulation of firearms. Not bans on specific firearms, but just better records on the selling and buying of them, and harsher punishment for the sale of black market arms.