The "da criminals will always get guns" argument is retarded. With enough money, you can get anything. Hell, you can probably buy people if you really wanted to. Doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws against slavery.
Largely, gun control is a topic that large scale political groups bring up to stir up people into a frenzy. Like gays marrying or 9/11 or creationism. I'm sure without those groups trying to tweak the voters, you could discuss the subject rationally and trivially come to agreements that anyone could support.
Because of the second amendment, you can't make guns illegal in the United States, but that doesn't imply zero regulations. You aren't entitled to stroll into a shop and buy a gun, no questions asked, like it's a candy bar. So having guns being available implies having some laws on the subject. To start with, I think most people would agree to having registries of the crazies, that you have to check when you transfer a gun.
The one issue that it seems like people disagree on is the role of gun show transfers. As far as federal laws go, if you're not a dedicated gun seller (like, if you don't work in a gun shop), you're not required to do the background checks. It sounds like they didn't want to mess with people who might be going hunting with family, or giving a family member a gun or something. But at a gun show, like, from the customers perspective, it's essentially the same thing as a gun shop. It's lines of people selling guns. Lots of merchandise. Really, I don't get why people are fighting so hard to keep the gun show transfer exception intact.
Oh, and we need to make the punishments for buying or selling guns illegally extremely severe. Yeah, there will always be desperate people who have no other options in life other than to turn to crime, but we can still scare some of them away with severe laws. If you're living in slums, yeah, dealing drugs might be your best option, but to a kid in the suburbs, it might not be worth the risk.