Cato’s Pilon: This Isn't the Time for More Gun Control Laws

Liberals see Saturday’s Arizona shooting as an argument for more gun control laws. Roger Pilon, vice President for legal affairs at the Cato Institute, disagrees. “The main concern of gun-safety laws should be to protect the rights of law-abiding people — their right to safety, and their right to keep and bear arms, including for self-defense — by keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people,” he writes on Politico.

“Yet strict gun-control laws do just the opposite: Dangerous people find ways to get guns, while law-abiding citizens are left defenseless. The evidence on that point, both here and abroad, is overwhelming.”

To the extent that guns are regulated, the states should be in charge, Pilon writes. “Over the past two years, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, but that states may reasonably regulate the exercise of the right.”