What gun control can and can't do

It won't help Chicago's murder rate, for example

Newtown police officers watch over a blocked-off section of Yogananda Street on Saturday morning, where the the mother of Adam Lanza, the alleged shooter, was killed at her home on Friday.
(Image credit: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

Doctors can't save every patient. But they must be able to tell the patient's family that they've done everything they can. Our politicians cannot say the same. Hollywood, by glorifying gun violence, can't say the same. If "guns don't kill people, people kill people," then make it harder for "people" to get guns. And make guns harder to be misused.

In 11 years of living in Washington, D.C., I knew one person who was mugged. In the six months since I've lived in LA, I've had a friend raped, two friends mugged at gunpoint, and another was the victim of a gay bashing attack. I take self-defense seriously. But getting a gun should be at least as hard as getting a driver's license.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.