Worshipping at the National Rifle Assn altar

[Florestan]

I agree with Andrei that exiling all the guns owners might work too, to anticipate his next argument.  Send them to Liberia?

Considering how many people here would die before handing over their gun to the government, that would result in a mini-genocide.

Eventually, I must concede to Todd´s point, slightly modified: it is indeed, and probably forever will be, incomprehensible for a non-American why matters involving law* and law-abiding are thought of by some (many? most?) Americans as ultimately a question of force and violent coercion --- and this, in a country which is regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the standard-bearer of the rule of law.   

(* I anticipate Ken´s next argument better than he did mine, so I hasten to add that I´m talking about laws established by the democratically elected representatives of the people in full compliance with the rules prescribed for doing so, not about the legal embodiment of a tyrant´s will.)

First of all, you seem to conflate on principle two quite distinct things: owning a gun, and carrying or using it in public, and therefore you conflate in practice other two quite distinct things: banning guns altogether, and regulating their use. The former is not practiced in any non-US Western nation; it´s only the latter that indeed is, and the main point of regulation is that one cannot carry it loaded, much less use it, in public places.

Secondly, returning to law-abiding, I submit to your consideration an idea which is not, I think, less American than force: money. Suppose a law is voted by the Congress granting a 25 % deduction on all federal taxes for the next 5 fiscal years to anyone who would (1) hand their guns to the nearest police station, and (2) not buy another one for the 5 years to come. What percentage of citizens do you estimate will abide?

Thirdly, there are two big ideas which the American Right attaches to the right of carrying guns: opposition to tyrannical government, and self-defense.

As for the former, the self-same Right regarded, and perhaps still regards, as tyrannical both the 16th amendment, and pretty much all the policies of New Deal ---yet they didn´t fire a single shoot at the governmental officials charged with their enforcing. They shot themselves in the foot instead (pardon the pun): an armed people offered no resistance to the establishment of tyranny, thus rendering moot their own theory of resistance.

As for the latter, here´s a question for you, Ken (BTW, you still haven´t answered my previous ones...): if, as you told us, you don´t own a gun nor do you intend to, how are you going to self-defend yourself, should (God forbid!) the need be? (Mind you, I do not imply thereby that you belong to the American Right.)