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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...1-58c702d2d975_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
It's a simplistic answer to deeper problems.
Nothing new there. Just the same tired, fallacious and scientifically incompetent misdirects that gun nutters typically use.
There term like "no clear evidence" means that that took every single correlated measure they could find, through them all as "control" variable into the analysis and unsurprisingly, there wasn't enough variance left for gun control measures to account for anything or if there was, there were still other variables they couldn't rule out.
That means nothing. If gun control had significant causal impact on reducing gun violence, you'd find that same "lack of clear evidence", because of the correlation nature of the data. If you throw in enough control variables you can make it seem like there is no "no clear evidence" that smoking causes cancer. With the kind of data available, inability to find "clear evidence" after accounting for all kinds of control factors is not any sort of evidence against the hypothesis that there is a meaningful causal relationship.
We don't have access to the kind of data from double blind controlled studies that we need to have the kind of direct "clear evidence".
The fact that this author sets the bar at "prove" (a word competent researchers do not use) shows his bar is so high that his conclusion that the correlational evidence doesn't meet it is meaningless. The fact that he tosses in the red herring of suicides suggests he is truly stupid or a dishonest partisan.
Also, note that he repeatedly refers to "popularly floated policies" and "oft-praised policies" like assault-rifle bans and silencer bans as not solving the problem of most murders because they are either not used in most murders or don't restrict things that cannot be easily made from other guns. That is not an indictment of gun control but of the cowardly limited gun control. It suggest that the only kind that will do anything is that which greatly limits and restricts all firearms of all types. Such restrictions are not part of "popular" policies being touted by politicians, so they are not addressed by his "research".
Again, the practical limitations of the data we have prevent any kind of direct empirical "proof" that such extensive restrictions would reduce gun violence. However, there are some facts we do know that when combined with a basic honest inductive reasoning would lead any sensible person to the conclusion that restrictions on how many guns can flow through the legal market and through any one person's hands, and a system that tracks every single gun legally made and sold would massively reduce criminal use of guns.
Here is some what we do know with near certainty:
Most guns used in murders got into the hands of the criminal via a chain of legal gun makers, dealers, and owners.
The ability of these players in the legal market to funnel guns into the hands of criminals is made easy by the lack of any regulations that would make getting caught a minimal probability.
The prevalence of guns possessed and distributed legally is by far the strongest predictor of the prevalence of guns possessed by criminals and distributed within the black market.
People cannot use a gun in a criminal fashion, if they do not have one.
Like possession of all things in the universe by any person, a person's possession of guns is heavily determined by how many of such objects are readily available, and how commonplace and standard it is among one's social network and peers to possess such objects.
Combining those facts with basic understanding of human behavior, we can infer that choking off and tracking the supply of legal guns would massively reduce the number readily available to those with criminal intent. This can be done by making it criminalizing various things that make it so easy for legal gun owners to profit off of reselling the guns that flow into the black market and get used in crime.
Among the ways (none of which violate the 2nd Amendment) to do this are: 1) make it illegal for anyone other than makers and dealers to buy or possess more than some small number of firearms, 2) require that every single gun be registered and its continued possession by the registered owner to be annually verified by law enforcement; 3) make it illegal for any gun possession transfer to occur outside a formal setting where their is some official present to verify it; 4) require that gun manufacturer put a gps trackable chip into every gun in a manner that attempts to remove it would largely ruin the firearm; 5) require all current guns to have such chips added to them; 6) require that all gun theft be reported within 60 days to reduce resellers'' ability to pretend their guns were stolen; 7) harsh criminal and civil liability if one's gun is used by another in a crime, unless they can show the weapon was reasonably secured and reported stolen within a reasonable time period; 8) make any first time violation of any of these felonies with harsh minimum prison sentences; 9) allow for larger gun collections, so long as they are all well secured and subject to random on-site inspection with harsh penalties for any missing or unsecured weapons
Note that beyond some additional fees and inspections similar to what is currently the case for automobiles, these would have minimal impact on gun owners who don't resell their guns into the black market or use their guns for criminal purposes. The NRA does not oppose such things for any principled Constitutional reasons (there are none), but because the NRA is a for-profit propaganda arm of gun companies whose sole goal is selling as many guns to as many people as possible with no regard for the consequences.
