Small Gun Reforms Can Lead to Bigger Ones

Adam Gopnik: “The truth of reform is that it can begin anywhere, on any scale, and, once begun, it tends to be self-renewing. And, as reformers well know, it does not always matter where the reform starts—if it starts at all, it magnetizes other reforms toward it.”

“The President’s proposed assault-weapons ban, for that reason, is a good place to start. It may not lasso all or even the most dangerous weapons, and it will certainly not immediately end gun massacres or the psychic costs they exact. But it is a start. The gun lobby opposes it so irrationally because it understands this, too.”