If the point was ever to reduce child deaths from firearms then the gun control legislation would have mental health funding and safety education funding attached.

First, I don't how that could be your response to my comment about the current state of mental health. So R is magically going to vote for two things they never (in recent history - say since school shootings became the big issue they are now - or even say since death by gun became the top cause of childhood death) vote for as long as we put those things together?

It seems kind of ridiculous to argue here over the content of the regulations when there is literally no possibility that half of our legislature will vote for it anyhow.

At some point you gotta look at two hundred years of extremely well documented history and recognize this system is working as intended.

Hmm. Yep, everything stemming from our system of government is just peachy. We don't still have problems rippling through our culture due to slavery and civil rights issues, one political party that has sold their soul to Trump and his cronies (oh and let's not forget how they've welcomed the white supremacists into their midst) and is just itching for an excuse to go full secession, unsustainable wealth inequality, a large percentage of families living paycheck to paycheck, a healthcare system that routinely makes people choose between paying for food and shelter or healthcare and medicine and etc etc etc.

Clearly with two hundred years of extremely well documented history of all these problems and our ineptitude and lack of will to solve many of them, we should conclude that the system is working as intended.

I hope you at least vote for candidates who support mental health initiatives. (Though that would rule out Republicans.)

But anyway hey, at least you are honest. (Kinda. Aside from assuming I'm pushing for gun-free just because I wish republicans would even talk about gun control.)

I see mass shootings and individual murder the price we pay

It's the price the victims pay. You see that price, that those dead people have paid, as something that you are willing for them to pay. Let's not mince words. It's your value judgement that it's worth it for them to have died. I wonder if they and their families felt it was.