First let me say that is refreshing to read a dissenting opinion that is not couched in terms of hysterics and emotion. I appreciate the analytical approach that these men have taken for their rationale, but I certainly do not agree.

Becker is a professor of economics, and Posner is a 7th Circuit Judge.

Can Gun Control Laws Be Effective
In summary, the proposal is a control through taxation scheme. A very high tax upon firearms, the author believes, will reduce the legitimate demand, and severe penalties for illegal trafficking in firearms will drive up the price of illegal guns. Thus if the masses cannot afford guns legally or even illegally we will see a reduction in gun crime.

This assumes that the already existing firearms could somehow be counted, registered, and taxed. Many law abiding citizens would simply refuse to turn in, register, or otherwise submit to regulation of their existing firearms. These people are generally law abiding, so there is little chance that law enforcement will ever be aware of who is in possession of what. Unless a crime is committed or these guns end up being used in self-defense the police are never going to get a chance to regulate them.

Under such a proposal it seems likely that the demand for guns could very well be greater than the demand for drugs. It is a limited risk one time purchase that unlike drugs would be blessed by many parents that believe in traditional American values.

The drug prohibition has demonstrated that law enforcement is able to effect the street price, but not halt the overall supply. A punitive taxation policy might create the methamphetamine equivalent of firearms, with small machine shops producing low quality, simple firearms. One quick technical point: the Sten submachine gun required few machined parts (the rest being stamped) and the British produced millions of them during WWII, without the aid of CAD/CAM or sophisticated machinery.

The lethality of firearms is not statistically significant. Should criminals choose to switch to knives the body count will be largely the same, just without the media spectacle of a mass shooting. Lunatics bent on killing large number of innocent people might be forced to switch to a different mechanism, but I would not make the assumption that the new weapon will be less effective than firearms, in fact it is very likely that something more effective could be used.

Gun Control--Posner's Comment

The summary of this article is basically that American needs a government sponsored public education campaign to convince us that our desire for firearms ownership is dangerous and wrong.

If the government wishes to mount some kind of propaganda assault, why not attack criminal behavior? Presumably if their was zero gun crime then it would not matter if private citizens owned guns or not. If the government takes the position that firearms ownership is some sort of moral failing or public health issue then couldn't they say the same thing about violent crime? Obviously the author doesn't believe a "don't commit crimes" campaign would work, but with the proper marketing people could come to believe that firearms are the problem.

Again this approaches the issue by assuming that the corner case is the primary issue. While lunatics might not transition from firearms to knives after some popularly mandated ban, the street criminals certainly would. The author might looking longly across the Atlantic, but knives are the weapons of choice there (and strangely enough gun crime is on the rise.) Assuming these policies were effective at preventing mass shootings, I don't know that such a policy would positively impact overall violent crime. We see that the most violent places in the US are those with the most restrictions upon firearms.