The Right Way to Combat Gun Violence: Most gun control ideas are irrelevant or impossible. Steve Chapman | February 25, 2013
Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong tree.
Many liberals think the answer to mass shootings and street crime lies in stricter gun regulation: banning “assault weapons,” limiting the capacity of magazines or, in their unrestrained moments, adopting ultra-stringent laws like those in Britain or Australia.
But most of these ideas are irrelevant or impossible. Even if the Second Amendment didn’t prevent it, Americans would never stand for a near-total ban on ownership of semiautomatic weapons, a la Australia, or of handguns, as in Britain. You might as well expect Nebraska to build 300 miles of oceanfront beaches. Continue reading