In this month’s Atlantic, correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg set out to make the case in a smart and reasonable way that would be amenable to the kind of people who read the Atlantic. It’s a fluke of timing that it hit newsstands just as Newtown reignited the gun debate. His massive 7,000-word feature, titled “The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control),” makes a compelling argument in what could be called the “Slate pitch” genre of contrarian counternarratives that seek to provoke by challenging widely held, though rarely debated, assumptions. In this case, he questions whether more guns invariably lead to more gun violence.He goes on to explain in a most eloquent and convincing way what many of us have been saying for a long time.
He advocates stricter gun restrictions like closing the gun show loophole and better training for people with concealed carry permits. But he concludes that with so many guns already in the hands of Americans (over 300 million, or about one per person) and the police incapable of protecting us, the situation is pretty much hopeless — so we’re probably better off arming ourselves and other law-abiding citizens so we can defend ourselves.
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