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APM writes:
It is easy to imagine situations where you would think, "I wish I had a gun".The problem is it's hard to imagine a situation where you would think, "I wish everyone had a gun."I guess the problem is enough people have guns, and enough of them are the wrong people, that it doesn't matter if a few more hobbyists or homeowners purchase a rifle. The fact that just about everyone can have a gun means the effect isn't that different from everyone actually having a gun. At least, that's what the data appears to show, according to Mark Kleiman. The problem is keeping guns out of the wrong hands. Given that there are a lot of guns on the street and a lot of guns in the shops, we're not doing that now, and probably wouldn't be able to do it through much short of a national ban and buyback program. Since that's not happening, letting the type of folks who want to buy guns legally do so doesn't seem to have much of an effect on the crime rate.
