I'm proposing an idea that should satisfy both gun nuts AND liberals/progressives...

[DanTex]

44. Guns and drugs are completely different.

I'm not in favor of complete prohibition of guns. However, the blanket statement that "prohibition doesn't work" is incorrect. It depends what you are trying to prohibit, and guns are very different from drugs or alcohol. Whereas alcohol prohibition failed, and the drug war is not going very well, prohibition of guns has worked out very well, for example, in Japan. Sure, there are a few illegal guns in Japan, but for the most part, it is a gun-free society.

And, like I said, every other first-world country has stricter gun laws than the US, and in every single case, those gun laws are working better than the gun laws in the US in terms of preventing gun violence. There are places in the world, like Mexico, where gun laws are strict and yet there are illegal guns all over the place. But this is because Mexico is a borderline narco-state. If you look at places like Canada, UK, etc. that are comparable to the US, there is simply no basis for thinking that tighter gun laws would lead to a massive illegal gun smuggling.