Gun control--for the children.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Follow-Up

"Gun-control advocates are hammering at the issue of children and guns as never before, in the hope that it will be easier to enact gun controls aimed at adults in an atmosphere of panic about children," the Independence Institute's David Kopel reported two decades ago in reason ("Gun Play," July 1993). Kopel warned that "threats to children, whether real or imagined, tend to short-circuit rational discussion" and argued that "gun-control proposals should not escape critical examination simply because their supporters paint a horrifying picture of children at risk."

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Kopel had in mind proposals such as the Brady Bill, enacted later that year, which created the current system of background checks for gun buyers. Nowadays politicians seeking to expand that system likewise invoke The Children, citing in particular the murder of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, last December. Unveiling a background check bill in April, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) referred to that horrifying crime, saying, "Nobody here in this great Capitol of ours with a good conscience could sit by and not try to prevent a day like that from happening again. I think that's what we're doing."

It was hard to see how. Manchin's legislation, which was...