JOE: Once again, your argument seems to be, we’re going to treat gun owners differently from everyone else.

DAN: Well, maybe we have to, because guns are so dangerous.

JOE: Why, because they’re going to shoot us?

DAN: No, no! Because we need the gun guys. You won’t get there by vilifying them or treating them like children. I think most of what happens with guns that is bad in this country could be solved by the gun guys themselves.

JOE: I disagree.

DAN: You don’t understand guns, and you don’t know gun guys, yet you want to make rules for things you don’t understand for people you don’t know. And that is not how we’re going to end up safer. Where gun guys draw the line is having you make consumer decisions for them. Because what you’re saying, Joe — you, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan — you want to say to some guy in Kansas, “You can have this rifle. But you can’t have that one.” And they’re saying, “What does Joe Nocera know about guns? What does Joe Nocera know about me?” It is offensive. We should be insisting on real responsibility from gun owners instead of doing what we’re doing now, which doesn’t get us anywhere. Because you don’t really think that by adjusting the number of rounds in a magazine we’re going to make everybody safer. You can’t possibly believe that.