It certainly doesn't need to be had:

This discussion is prompted by the Acts of a Deranged man who sought to commit a massacre.

We are discussing Guns in the context of "Should they be allowed?" ONLY because that happened. It's a pseudo discussion at that because everyone understand that nobody can and should bear a consequences of the acts of this mad man, and those that are victims to his act need to blame the problematic "Gun Free" zone that creates such a tantalizing target for these mad men and the lack of protection in these vulnerable places.

If he did it with a bomb this conversation wouldn't happen, regardless of gun free zones or not as nobody can protect against such a suicidal mad man, and if he did it with a bulldozer, equally this would not be a discussion we would be having as would be the case for anything other than a Legal (not lawful) firearm.

The American Government is not a Democracy, here the 51% DON'T vote to eat the other 49% for dinner, and the majority has made it's voice heard on matters of "Mob Rules/Democracy" which are interchangeable terms because Democracy is only the appearance of Legitimate, but it could never amount to actual Lawful Governance which relies all on the Consent of the people, who clearly Do Not Consent by the fact that 2/3 aren't even registered to vote! What you call American Government should never be called so as it's fundamentally not what the American Government guaranteed to Americans is or has ever been.

In light of that, North Korea is more Lawful than what you purport as American Government and there is a reason this Unlawful Corporation is going after North Korea after gifting them the only type of Nuclear Reactor that could be used to produce weapons grade plutonium, and it's akin to the snobby rich kid PLANTing his stuff in the poor kids hands and then crying "thief", unfortunately the world is waking up, and this causes the rich kid to profess even more loudly "THIEF", but all the world hears is a snobby rich kid making dubious allegations which doesn't bode well with the little runt.