A way to cut the supply of guns

From The Reality-Based Community, a gun control proposal that I’ve never heard before:  nationalize the gun industry.

The ownership strategy would not be profit-maximising. It would include:

  1. Maintaining current sales to the military and (with less marketing effort) law enforcement;
  2. Dropping all sales to civilians of semi-automatic weapons, keeping only two-shot shotguns, one-shot bolt-action hunting rifles, and revolvers;
  3. Selling only through retailers committing to an enforceable code of practice including full background checks;
  4. Setting up an attack-dog legal department to protect patent and trademark IP very aggressively, to discourage new entrants;
  5. Dropping all connection with the NRA or other gun advocacy organisations.

For a few years, the gunmakers would lose money. So you have to add maybe another $1bn for restructuring costs. These would never be recovered, and represent the permanent net cost of the operation.

Notice what isn’t here: repeal of the Second Amendment.  A Democratic Congress could, and should, pass this program with a simple majority vote.  It would slow the spread of weapons of mass shooting, and give us time to deal with the huge inventory of dangerous weapons (perhaps by a voluntary buy-back program).

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