A great deal of the claims and factoids put out by gun control proponents over the years, about “assault weapons”, “plastic guns”, “cop-killer bullets”, the “gun-show loophole” were either gross and deliberate distortions or outright lies. There was a ballyhooed book put out about 10 years ago by a history professor that tried to rewrite early American history and argue that guns weren’t prevalent or important at all, which was proven to be an outright historical fraud (he was caught citing records that didn’t exist, and was fired from his tenured position and had his book pulled by the publisher as a result). Then there was the effort to try to sue gunmakers out of business, until Congress put a stop to that. These sorts of things had us convinced that we were dealing with very dishonorable and powerful people who were operating in utter bad-faith, who intended to manipulate and twist the law, the courts, the media and history to disarm Americans forever. Add in the fact that all the various and increasingly restrictive gun control laws over the years never worked (murder in DC went up AFTER the ban), that meant that there would always be arguments for more and tighter restrictions.

It’s possible though that this ruling MIGHT paradoxically make some of those reasonable controls more likely. That the Amendment guarantees an individual right is now recognized precedent. A few more rulings that incorporate it under the 14th Amendment to apply to the states as well; maybe that hit back at unnecessary, arbitrary and purely harassing restrictions; and that have the courts and the Justice Department pursue violations of gun rights the way they do other civil rights violations, and I’d be a lot more comfortable with reasonable compromises here and there.

That’s why I don’t understand why gun nuts are so knee-jerk about any attempts to impose restrictions. It’s not like the abortion issue, where restrictions are basically an unspoken attempt to incrementally outlaw it all together. Most people who want slight restrictions on guns aren’t trying to ban them, they’re honestly just trying to strike a balance.

Whether gun control is good policy or not is another question, but now gun control advocates can approach it honestly. If they want to ban handguns, they have to change the constitution.