In your essays on guns, you eliminate pretty much everything but the suggestion of licensing as responsible gun control, the efficacy of which as hypothetical as any other, in my view.

A recent multivariate analysis by Siegel and his team indicates that across a wide time scale and across all states, the only regulation that had any impact on gun homicide was licensing. Literally nothing else had any effect. Licensing was the only thing. Not even Universal Background Checks mattered.

In short, morality first, efficacy second.

Gun culture would agree, but they would phrase it “responsibility first, efficacy second.” They would point to a cultural erosion of personal responsibility in this country, and would point to regulations as being a way for people to push that personal responsibility back onto government. If everyone were responsible with their firearms, accidents go to zero, firearm suicides go to zero, homicides go to zero.

I don’t write about this stuff generally speaking because it’s ideological. Ideological arguments are generally pretty pointless, because you and your interlocutor basically spout wind for hours or days until you finally come to the conclusion that you hold different core values and nothing can be resolved.

The whole rest of the internet is doing that. I’m not interested. You can get that anywhere.