The second amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, so that we can always have a well regulated militia, when needed, but all rights come with reasonable limitations. It should be very difficult to get a gun, and the fact is that if it were much more difficult to get guns, it would be more difficult for criminals to get them as well. We can have responsible people carrying, and that is a good thing potentially, but carrying a firearm has all the risks of flying a plane, and requires skill to be done safely, much like flying a plane does. This is why a gun license should be much more like a pilots license in several ways...
So, to get a pilots license, you have to take classes. These cost money, and that is part of the deal. You can get a discount by joining the military. You also have to practice a lot with professional supervision and feedback. This is also expensive. That is part of the deal. You have to log the hours that you are active, and take it seriously. It takes about 30 logged hours of activity to take the test to get a license. There is a national government agency that is in charge of all of it, and they take their job seriously. You need to pass a medical exam regularly that shows that you are not likely to lose your bearings or kill yourself or others in action. If you can't see, or you commit a serious crime, or you become a threat to yourself or others, you lose your privileges.
On the topic of expenses of being a gun owner, we might consider whether gun owners should pay for the buyback programs that recover stolen guns and destroy them to keep the streets safer. Many of those illegal guns were once legally owned, and stolen or illegally sold. A cost of ownership should be ownership of the problem. While many gun owners like to think of their homes being safer, the sad truth is that homes with guns are broken into more often, because they have guns in them worth stealing.
And on an additional note… is there any reason that we still have to use toxic lead in bullets and shot, and pollute the ground water? I don’t think so. If something is worth shooting, it is worth shooting with a decent quality bullet.