Immediately after the horrific shootings in Las Vegas, politicians and pundits began calling for "common-sense" gun control. They always do after shootings.
But what does "common sense" really mean?
They never call for "common-sense" solutions to shootings in Chicago, which historically had nearly perfect gun-control laws. From 2002 through 2016, Chicago suffered 7,693 murders, most by gunfire, far more than American soldier deaths in the global war on terror.
Anti-gun people presumably want private gun ownership outlawed. But there would still be huge numbers of guns in the hands of criminals - and in the hands of government.
Anti-gun people should read the 1991 book, "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland," by Christopher R. Browning. It tells the story of an "order-police" unit, somewhat like a National Guard unit. Battalion 101 was commanded by a major who won the Iron Cross First Class in World War I and was 53. He was a career policeman and a Nazi but not in the SS. His two captains were career policemen in their late and 20s and SS. Seven lieutenants were ages 33 to 48; five were party members but none were SS. The 32 noncommissioned officers were 27 to 40, all prewar policemen with 22 party members and seven SS. Battalion 101 rotated between Hamburg and Poland. On July 12, 1942, the battalion was ordered to shoot about 1,500 Polish Jews. Men could ask to opt out, and a dozen did. Others soon bowed out, but the job got done. Similar jobs followed. The unit eventually shot about 38,000 people.
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The shooters were mostly ordinary men, subjects of a government with absolute gun control. Common sense says private gun ownership ensures it's impossible to contemplate establishing such a government in this country.
Bill Rees
Duluth
