Ken Braun: Banning guns will work as well as the war on drugs

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Because countries with strict firearms regulation have USA-levels of gun violence, obviously

and "banning assault weapons" (in the most commonly-used description of said "assault weapons" they constitute semi-automatic versions of military-style weapons like the AR and Kalashnikov, with high-capacity magazines) is not "banning guns" (since such a ban would not extend to most lower-capacity semi-automatic and bolt-action hunting rifles). There's also no comparison to the war on drugs; addicts need their drug of choice in order to function normally and stave off withdrawal. Combine addiction with the illegality of drugs and the financial hardships of many drug addicts and what you have is people who'll steal to support their habit; the illegality of drugs leads to a highly lucrative market for organised crime.

Let's look at the most sensible comparison here, to fully-automatic weapons and sawn-off shotguns, regulated under the 1934 NFA. If the argument that regulating some guns while leaving others available will lead to an explosion of organised criminal activity to supply demand for such banned weapons had any merit, then we should be seeing a lot more instances of fully-automatic weapons being trafficked by organised crime, and their use in crime; we aren't.