There is much truth in what you say.

But I get the impression you see routine firearms regulation measures as incredibly awkward and cumbersome to implement. They are not, they are in force in many democracies throughout the world, and a Gestapo or secret police is not required to enforce them.

The major conservative objection to even the most rudimentary and common sense gun control seems to be that none of it can stop all gun crime. Of course it can't. But it can cut it way back. Sure, even gun-restricted Norway had its gun massacre, but over there it was a freak event. In the US it a continuous holocaust that we barely notice any more. It has become routine, and we have a whole toolbox full of excuses why we can't do anything about it.

And this idea of knife violence demonstrating gun control is pointless is...well, Frank, I know you can do better than that. Do you really think our knife murders would increase to make up for the gun murders that didn't happen if we made guns harder to acquire. Look at Canada, a nation socially similar to the US, it provides a perfect experimental control. People die from gunfire there, but its not like here. And Canadians are not forced by jack-booted, goose-stepping storm troopers to turn over their weapons. And they do own guns there, and there is no epidemic of knife violence.

Guns are a problem here for two reasons: American men see firearms as an expression of their manhood, probably because they're emasculated by their sexual hangups and humiliated by their chronic economic insecurity. And it helps there is a highly organized and well-financed industrial propaganda and political organization determined to keep gun envy at a fever pitch because it is so damn profitable. It is an addiction and they are pushers.

We tend to be a bit paranoid about the nexus of freedom and money. Remember when Lee Iacocca (then at Ford) solemnly told us that making Detroit put seatbelts in cars would cause the collapse of the US motor industry?

Will even the most effective and efficient (and democratic and fair) gun regulations overcome our social and political hangups about guns? I doubt it. But if it could cut the casualty rates by even a nominal amount, wouldn't it be worth it?

Nobody complains about seatbelts taking away our freedom and prosperity any more.