As to your first sentence....it is collection of personal anecdotes that indeed make up national policy...it's called consensus.
Your second paragraph seems somewhat rhetorical, as we already know that there are people who don't own guns but are rabid gun rights advocates in the LaPierre/NRA vein. And there are gun owners who are seriously in favor of and advocate for better, more efficient gun control laws. Most of your proposed pre-ownership requirements already exist in many states.
As far as I know off hand, psychological test are not a requirement in any state to own a gun.....to initiate such a policy would be a strong intrusion of someone's personal life, especially since the type of questions would NOT be the same as say the ones used to evaluate police officers (what they would be is anyone's guess). So unless somebody is going to foot the bill to have a national mandate that every potential gun owner go through the same evaluation and testing as cops do PLUS additional psych evaluation, it ain't happening.
Your Sandy Hook reference was a bad poor example, as the perp STOLE those weapons from his mother. She purchased them legally, and if I remember correctly, she was not deemed mentally disturbed in any way. Her kid was another story. Like I said before, it's very hard to legislate against crazy.
We live in a country of individuals who compete for position and resources, of which both are limited. We live in country that is still dealing with its history of near genocide, slavery, economic castes and misogynistic attitudes. So the guns are not going anywhere. But we can regulate them to the best of our ability. So far, that fully hasn't happened.
