Over at slate.com, William Saletan is Rethinking Gun Control. No seriously. His article puts forward ten “most salient or surprising takeaways” from an Institute of Medicine study Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. Saletan’s takes starts with the usual blather: “1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem.” And then — miracle or miracles — gets real . . .
“Gun violence” is going down, handguns are the criminal’s ballistic BFFs, mass shootings aren’t the problem, gun suicide is more of a problem than gun homicide, guns are used often and effectively for self-defense (!) and “bad gun dealers” are not a problem. Saletan doesn’t propose “solutions” (thank God) and some of the other points are pointless.
But this, at Slate? What’s the world coming to? Common sense? Guard up. Always. But are we, you know, winning? [h/t JJ]