Gun Policy Is Hard

By Trevor Burrus Trevor Burrus

It’s time for a collective freak-out on guns. It’s time to spend too long debating your wife’s cousin on Facebook, who seems to have been spoonfed his lines by the NRA/Everytown for Gun Safety. It’s time to unfriend those who keep posting obstinate things about the need for concealed carry/an assault weapons ban. It’s time to facepalm about those who just don’t get it.

And it is time to just fix the problem, right?

I wish it were that simple, but, like most questions in public policy, it is not. Gun policy is hard, and getting it right—or even starting to get it right—requires calling out the bad arguments from both sides and understanding inevitable trade-offs and unavoidable facts.

Full disclosure: I’m a gun-rights supporter, insofar as the phrase has a discrete meaning. I’ve written many pieces arguing for the right to own and carry guns, and against ineffective or unconstitutional proposals to curtail gun rights. Yet, with each mass shooting, I grow increasingly despondent about whether any productive debate about guns is happening, much less possible. Consequently, I’m hesitant to write another piece about why mass shootings should not be the focus of gun policy, or about how banning or controlling …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute