The Smithian

more.

…There are…many countries that resemble ours in wealth and history; they have different gun laws, and they have much lower levels of gun violence. They have about the same incidence of crazy people, but after they have one psycho gun massacre they take action, and then very rarely have another. Meanwhile, the desperately dim efforts to equate some other potentially dangerous thing—cars or trucks or alcohol or airplanes—with guns gets more ridiculous each time they’re attempted. Many good things can have bad consequences in the wrong circumstances. What ought to be done—indeed, exactly what we often do—is to limit the dangerous consequences while allowing for the good ones. That’s why we do things like regulate who drives cars, put warning signs for pregnant women on wine, demand licenses on dogs, check people for box cutters before they board airplanes—all common-sense activities by which we attempt to regulate the risks of our pleasures.