Probably it’s true that we would have a lower murder rate if we had fewer guns, as the regulators always say. But what follows from that proposition? Americans have hundreds of millions of guns. We are not going to get rid of them. That’s not because the National Rifle Association or the gunmakers’ lobby or a contested conception of liberty stand in the way. It’s because of the overwhelming opinion of the public — 72 percent oppose a ban on guns — and the practical impossibility of confiscation.
I’m not a gun nut: I believe there is a right to own guns, but it’s not absolute. Nor am I counseling fatalism. My colleagues at National Review have suggested three reforms: “We might move to prosecute anybody who has reasonable cause to believe that he is availing a dangerous person of a firearm. We might insist that to have knowledge that a person represents a grave and imminent threat to others is to have a legal responsibility to inform the authorities. We might look to reform our lax treatment and commitment laws, which leave too many at-risk individuals on the street, suffering from hallucinations and delusions over which, without medication, they may have little control.”
These ideas seem to me to be a more promising anti-violence agenda. But if politicians and activists take them up, they should not exaggerate the difference they would make or treat skeptics as the enemies of decency. And they should not disguise the modesty of the good their proposals would achieve behind the drama of a grand battle against the wicked.
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