Never Again - Part 2: Why We Can't Stop Shootings

The mass killings that have been too frequently in the news has brought about numerous calls for this kind of thing to forever be stopped. Every killing is too many they say. Now I agree. It would be awesome for there not to be any more mass killings. However, let's look at what would really be needed to prevent them and then answer the questions about what the cost of those efforts would be.

Guns are frequently the tool used for these killings. A frequent refrain is to get rid of them to minimize the risk. The issue is that any gun that is semi-automatic (meaning it can hold multiple rounds and fire one shot per trigger pull) can be effectively utilized in a mass shooting and they have been. That covers most guns in existence. Additionally the people doing these shootings don't have much regard for the law obviously. The availability of them in society in general (legal or not) means that the only real way to keep them out of the hands of criminals is to ban guns entirely.

Thus the cost, all gun hunting and sport shooting would go away. People would not be able to have guns for personal protection despite the fact that most violence is not gun violence. The population would be unarmed and at the mercy of potential future totalitarian leaning governments. National defense would be degraded (that really is a factor). The biggest issue here though, and it is related to the threat of bad government, is that a lot of people are VERY attached to gun ownership. I do not believe that guns could be removed from society without the country going through a time of widespread violence, and even potentially a civil war. That is obviously counterproductive given the point was to avoid shootings in general.

There are unfortunately people and organizations who want to do harm to our nation. They are not dumb, and will use whatever means available to hurt us. That often comes in the form of guns, but even if we succeeded in disarming the whole country all we would do is make the bad guys have to be a little more creative. They could drive trucks through crowds (Nice) they could use knives to stab people (Israel, Japan). The only real change would be your average citizen would be more or less defenseless.

The cost of "never again" is just too high.