A gun, by contrast, is a tool — like scissors, or vacuums. Those tools can kill, yes. But they don’t always. There is a reason that you don’t hear pro-choicers saying, “You can’t be pro-life and pro-scissors” and that reason is that you quite obviously can be both things. You just can’t be pro-life and pro-murdering unborn babies with scissors. The same rule applies to guns. I have many guns, and, while they are indeed all capable of inflicting horrible damage, I have never hurt a single person with any of them. As with scissors, I can absolutely be pro-life and keep those guns for my defense; I just can’t be pro-life and murder people with them.

At this point in the discussion, the McFauls of the world usually zoom out a little and say, “Okay, maybe you’re right about yourself, but other people use AR-15s to kill, and, as an opponent of their prohibition, you do not wish to stop that.” But this, too, is silly. For a start, for a person to be against the process of abortion does not mandate that he must be against the private ownership of all dangerous items. There are between 15 and 20 million “assault weapons” in private hands in the United States, and they are used in at most 200 murders per year. Knives, by contrast, are used in around 1,500. I wonder: Can I not be pro-life and pro-cutlery?