No. of Recommendations: 4
First, you're confirming for me that the goal is to eliminate firearms from private hands. Thanks!
Nope. Just that some folks advocate for the elimination of civilian ownership of firearms - something that you already knew, as you've had discussions with people advocating that position on TMF's boards (and perhaps on this one, though I don't follow it as closely). As you well know, there's no single "the goal" in a public policy debate involving the opinions of literally millions of people. It would be a vastly simpler society if that weren't true. But it is. Some people think the solution is to eliminate civilian ownership of firearms - but many others believe that the better solution is simply to adopt a range of potential regulations on them.
Second...you're assuming it can be done. What gun control advocates aren't getting is that regardless of how you feel about guns, the horse in terms of removing them from American society has left the barn. It's not practically possible to confiscate them all. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Absolutely not. I'm not assuming it can be done. I agree with you that it would be extraordinarily difficult. The real-world difficulties of eliminating civilian ownership of guns are a very valid critique of the proposed policy. Claiming that the policy isn't really about guns, though, is not.
I'm also not going to grant your point about other countries "not becoming terrible places to live" because those comparisons do not apply at all to the United States. Neither in size nor in cultural makeup. It's just not valid to say, "Well, Japan is okay and they have very limited private gun ownership" because Japanese society is very different than American society.
Of course. Again, that's a potential argument against eliminating civilian ownership of firearms. The context I raised those other countries was not to argue equivalence with the United States, but rather to point out the difference between your hypothetical policy (eliminate all limits on the governments ability to search and seize property) and the policy proposal of disarmament. Since the latter has actually been implemented in several relatively pleasant societies, while the former has only been implemented in security states and dictatorships, the latter is a far more credible policy alternative. There are certainly reasons you can argue it wouldn't be as good a policy in the U.S. than in other nations - but unlike your hypothetical, it is at least plausible for a free democratic western advanced society to adopt a "no firearms" policy and remain free. It might not actually be a good policy for every country, but it's within the realm of plausibility in a way that your hypothetical was not.
