Gun Control 1

Gun Control

Chris Rock once did a comedy sketch in which he suggests we drive the price of ammunition up, making guns an impractical weapon of choice for criminals.

I'm not sure how serious he was, but it strikes me as a great idea. Here's how we do it.

Make the manufacture of handguns, automatics and certain semiautomatics and their corresponding ammunition illegal.

Just the manufacture. Sale and ownership would remain legal.

Gun companies could continue to manufacture hunting rifles. They would have to downsize and there would be some resultant unemployment, but likely no more than a stand western country's economy could absorb.

The manufacture of handguns for police officers would be restricted to government contracts.

You want to own a handgun or two for home and personal defense? Fine, go ahead. You're not going to need more than a few rounds in an entire lifetime for that purpose. And practice sparingly.

You want to own an automatic rifle? You'd be a nut and need your head checked, but go head. Just remember that while you're yee-hawing and pretending to be Rambo, you might not be able to replace that ammo. Better keep it for when King George tries to take your rights away!

As for the thing about if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns, well, they'll have to check their ammo too. Certainly a black market for guns and ammunition would spring up, but can you imagine how fantastically expensive weapons suitable for use in crime would become?

Hunting rifles and their respective ammo would remain legal to manufacture. I'd like to see a street thug try to mug somebody with a .22? Or a gang try a drive by with a bolt action?

We could even abolish the gun registery, and not have to experiment with other forms of it.

So. Nobody would have their guns taken away. Some loss of jobs. Loss of fun at the target range. Gun crime would be reduced drastically, at least in the long term. Seems to me like every concern from the anti-gun control corner is addressed with this plan, with the exception of "fun at the range", which I think we can all agree is a minor, trivial issue, in the face of the enormous amount of suffering gun crime is responsible for, no?