I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten into gun control debates but it’s probably in the hundreds. Sometimes it will degenerate into a question of “proof.” As long as the anti-freedom bigot can imagine some sort of reason, no matter how implausible, why the data could possibly be faulty or the conclusions erroneous they will claim that the pro-freedom position is wrong. Other times it will boil down to “I just don’t want people carrying guns around.” Some people just say, “I’m entitled to my opinion.” Other times it will be “I don’t believe your facts” (the Red Curtain of Blood moment this last one generates will be discussed some other time).

I’ve become very weary of these debates. Recently, unless it is a public or semi-public debate I rapidly lose interest and let it drop. Failing to convince (essentially no one will admit they were wrong no matter how badly they get “beaten up”) just one person isn’t worth the effort to me. A few years ago I came up with my “one question” response to bring the debate to a quick close but I tend to let myself get drawn into refuting their points rather than bring them to my playing field where they don’t stand a chance of survival. I now want to present this “one question” in as much detail yet as succinctly as I can. Then I can just refer people to this post and be done with them.

There is only one real question (this is NOT the “one question”) to ask, “Does gun control make the average person more or less safe?” Yes, we could debate what the 2nd Amendment really means. And we could debate how even if all guns were banned you would still have to reanimate your cold dead fingers before you could take it from me. But that is a distraction from the real question (again, NOT the “one question”), “Should firearms be restricted?”

There are essentially just two ways to look at the data — each has their weaknesses. You can look in one political or geographical area over two or more time periods where the gun laws are different. Or you can look at one time period in two or more political or geographical areas where the gun laws are different. There have been so many gun and weapon control laws passed over the years that there is no need to do any more experiments. The data is all out there. Researchers have written hundreds of papers and books on the subject.

My “one question” is this:

Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?