Professor Says America Has Proven Its 'Inability to Handle Widespread Gun Ownership

Following this weekend's motorcycle gang shootout in Waco, Texas, one religious studies professor says Americans' "proven inability to handle widespread gun ownership" means "many forms of gun ownership" should be outlawed — and then the government should confiscate firearms deemed illegal.

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In an opinion piece for the Dallas Morning News, University of Texas at Austin professor John Traphagan said that the "solution to gun-related crime is not further arming the public." While many Americans don't "go out and kill people" and safely store their guns, the "bad apples" are spoiling things:

[A]s a whole, Americans do not seem to be able to handle gun ownership in a way that permits maintenance of a civil society. The reality is that the significant numbers of bad apples have spoiled it for those law-abiding gun owners, and it’s time that gun rights organizations such as the National Rifle Association recognize this and begin working with those who want realistic gun control laws, in part as a way of building trust with those who do not own guns.

Traphagan's threefold solution is comprehensive gun-control laws that "prohibit many forms of gun ownership"; cutting back or "eliminating access to and the ability to purchase guns"; and unleashing the government to confiscate or purchase "illegal guns already in circulation among the public."

For those who argue that taking guns from law-abiding citizens would mean "only the criminals will have guns," Traphagan said that notion hasn't proven true in countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea that have "fairly recently enacted strict gun control laws":

There is simply no need for a civilized society to tolerate the type of gun-related violence that Americans seem to accept as normal. Other modern industrial countries have realized, in some cases long ago, that it is unnecessary for people in a free society to have easy access to guns. 

(H/T: Campus Reform)

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