Think street racers on the highway. You get sick of people driving 100+ so you reduce the speed limit from 55 to 45, but don’t assign cops to patrol the road. The people who actually follow the speed limit will unhappily comply, but the racers will ignore the 45 sign just as the ignore the 55 sign.
In that situation, reducing the speed limit from 55 to 45 only harasses the people who follow the law, while having no effect on the people the law is targeted at (street racers) who routinely break the law anyway.
Applied to the situation- if you make this or that gun illegal, the people who follow gun laws will stop buying them, but the people who ignore gun laws (aka the people who commit most of the gun crime) will continue to buy (black market) or own those guns.
Thus, without strong enforcement, the law is useless.
This is especially true when existing laws already on the books WOULD have stopped the incident, had those laws been properly enforced.
It’s an analogy I made a few posts up.
In that situation, reducing the speed limit from 55 to 45 only harasses the people who follow the law, while having no effect on the people the law is targeted at (street racers) who routinely break the law anyway.
Applied to the situation- if you make this or that gun illegal, the people who follow gun laws will stop buying them, but the people who ignore gun laws (aka the people who commit most of the gun crime) will continue to buy (black market) or own those guns.
Thus, without strong enforcement, the law is useless.
This is especially true when existing laws already on the books WOULD have stopped the incident, had those laws been properly enforced.