Reply #18: Maybe

[dave420]

if guns are more expensive, less people will be able to afford them? Kind of like Chris Rock's $5,000-bullet scheme. If they're made illegal, the handguns won't stay on the black-market forever, as each siezed gun will be taken out of circulation. At the moment, each illegal firearm siezed is replaced by stealing a new one from a happy NRA owner, who in turn just goes and gets a new one from his local licensed dealer. Stop people from being able to buy them from gun dealers all over the country, and the number of guns in criminals' hands falls. Unless criminals can summon guns out of thin air, or the customs guys let in massive shipments, the number has to fall. Then there's the argument about how people will have to defend themselves from gun-wielding criminals, but then surely that's what the police are for.

Civilized != armed.