Why fighting gun violence by arming citizens isn't a crazy idea

If the goal is to stop people from dying, it might be the most realistic short-term solution we have

What's the critical, time-sensitive policy solution?
(Image credit: Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Corbis)

The last time I wrote about a mass shooting, I decided to publicize an argument made by a group of gun control advocates who were insanely frustrated at the sclerosis within their own movement. Their idea: Focus on the ammo. Bullets are perishable. Laws to restrict and monitor mass ammo purchases might deter some (though certainly not all) potential shooters, and it would also have a real effect in poor, non-white communities where gun violence is the norm, not the exception.

It was clear to me, as it should be clear to everyone today, that these tweeted-and-televised atrocities, even as they become more common, do not change the laws of political physics that constrain the gun control debate to two highly caricatured, unproductive dimensions. Because there is no realistic way to confiscate guns, and because the right to buy guns is, for better or worse, enshrined within the Constitution and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in its Heller decision, guns are not going to disappear.

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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.