The NRA’s most absurd argument

Michael Tomasky
TheDailyBeast.com

No new gun-control law can prevent all future massacres. Of all the arguments against commonsense gun laws made by the National Rifle Association, said Michael Tomasky, that one is clearly “the dumbest.” Gun-rights absolutists have been insisting that there’s no point in mandatory background checks and bans on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, since these restrictions couldn’t guarantee that Aurora and Newtown would never happen again. But what law prevents all lawbreaking? The Clean Water Act did not end all pollution. Laws against armed robbery don’t prevent all robberies. Laws are passed to reduce, not eliminate, acts that society deems objectionable. The fact that it’s impossible to design a perfect gun-control law should not serve as an excuse to do nothing when psychos armed like commandos shoot up malls, schools, and movie theaters with horrifying regularity. Gun-rights absolutists write off such massacres as the price for their continued access to killing machines designed for mass slaughter. “The prevention canard” serves as “the least morally objectionable way for them to express that.” No one should be deceived.