Hand Over Your Weapons

If gun-control advocates really want to stanch the blood, they'll have to persuade more people of the need to confiscate millions of firearms


The logic of gun control lies, at bottom, in substantially reducing the number of deadly weapons on the street—and confiscation is far and away the most effective approach. Is there any conceivable turn of events in our politics that could make confiscation happen? And what would a mass seizure look like?

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The United States’ astronomically high rates of firearm violence aren’t rooted in some unique American propensity for derangement and delinquency. Studies show our levels of mental illness and basic criminality are on par with other wealthy countries.

Other common explanations, like the social fissures created by our racial diversity, have been debunked by researchers, too. The only explanation left—an explanation borne out by a number of careful studies—is the sheer size of the American arsenal. There are 310 million handguns, shotguns, and semi-automatic weapons in American homes, garages, and waistbands.

Ultimately, if gun-control advocates really want to stanch the blood, there’s no way around it: They’ll have to persuade more people of the need to confiscate millions of those firearms, as radical as that idea may now seem.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/12/hand-over-your-weapons