The Newtown tragedy cries for a change in public policy, but if we’re serious about wanting to reduce the carnage from random mass shootings, stiffer gun control laws are no answer. Marginal gains might be had from, say, regulating gun show transactions or large round magazine sales. But as study after study has shown, no credible correlation can be drawn between such laws and gun violence. As in most such cases, the Newtown guns were legally obtained, after all.
Our mental health policies doubtless need attention, but that’s a complex issue, fraught with civil liberties implications — like gun control itself. Self-defense is one of our oldest, most basic rights, as the Supreme Court held when it ruled that the Constitution protected the qualified right of individuals to own guns.
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