In the wake of horrific crimes like the recent mass shooting in Oregon, many in the political class respond as if there were an easy way to keep such tragedies from happening. If it weren’t for the stubbornness of the National Rifle Association, the story goes, these deadly incidents could be prevented. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton urged “sensible restraints,” and said if she is elected president she would use her executive authority to impose them.
This sort of rhetoric suggests that there is a workable policy sitting on the shelf, ready for implementation. It also attempts to have it both ways, suggesting that effective gun control is possible without reaching into America’s gun safes and disarming ordinary citizens.
It’s notable how much the rhetoric has changed since the peak of the national gun-ban movement, when politicians talked honestly about reducing violence by constricting the gun supply—and what that would require. In a 1989 Senate hearing, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, a Democrat from Ohio, candidly explained: “If you don’t ban all of them you might as well ban none of them.” But gun bans proved unpalatable to American voters in even the most liberal jurisdictions. In 1976 Massachusetts voters rejected a handgun ban referendum 69% to 24%, with 86% of eligible voters going to the polls. In 1982 California voters rejected a handgun “freeze,” which would have barred their sale, 63% to 37%, with a voter turnout of 72%.
