Jack Shafer on the limits of gun-control legislation:
As Noel Perrin wrote in Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879, cultures can change their violent ways, but building such a cultural consensus takes more effort and persuasion that just passing new gun-control laws.
Yes, but passing new gun-control legislation does a great deal to advance that cultural consensus. By defining guns – and some more than others – as dangerous and problematic, we impact cultural norms as well as individual behavior. Laws not only exist to punish law-breakers but to inspire the law-abiding; they provide a template for how we want to live.