"Prohibition was kneecapped by Americans' widespread refusal to stop producing, selling, and drinking booze. Millions of Americanssmoked marijuana decades before majority sentiment creeped toward legalizing the stuff. Gays and lesbians not only surreptitiously lived and loved when they were targeted by the law—they also famously (and righteously) stomped cops who raided the Stonewall Inn, ultimately precipitating liberalization. And restrictions on exporting encryption were eased only after cryptographers illegally exported code—even printing it on T-shirts as an act of civil disobedience.
But in the wake of Omar Mateen's bloody rampage in Orlando, gun control advocates think that overcoming the passionate opposition of firearms owners and imposing a ban on a difficult to define class of "assault weapons" is a swell idea whose time has come. This prohibition will somehow be different.
"Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons should meet these families and explain why that makes sense," President Obama tut-tutted last week. But the moralizer-in-chief failed to make sense himself, calling for the outlawing of a category of devices that doesn't really exist."
note: Reason magazine is a good source of Libertarian ideas -- Vote for Johnson in November
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