When the discussion of gun control rears its ugly head, some well-meaning proponent of “common sense gun measures” invariably tells us that no one wants to take our guns. They swear that they only want the “bad” guns. Maybe they’ll say, “No one needs an assault rifle” but if you mention bans on bolt action guns or handguns, they start backing up with their hands in supplication. “No, no, no, no. No one wants to do anything about those,” he’ll say. That means he’s either wrong or lying. Democratic politicians have been brainwashed by political hacks like me to begin all of their statements about guns by declaring support for the Second Amendment and a deep affinity for the cultures of hunters and sportsmen—even if they themselves have never fired weapons. We call them “gun safety” proposals instead of “gun control” measures because pollsters and consultants divined that “gun safety” would be less alarming to gun voters, and that gun voters were to be coddled at all cost. The Democratic gun control strategy fails because it is defined by this poverty of ambition—the determination never to look beyond fear of political repercussions. Universal background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines are good ideas and we should seize the opportunity to enact them if it presents itself. But they won’t come anywhere close to making gun violence in America a tolerable problem. We are nibbling around the edges instead of proposing bold, meaningful solutions such as: A national gun registry, so law-enforcement officials can know when someone is compiling an arsenal. The government can track purchases of allergy medicines that can be used to make methamphetamine, and fertilizers that can be used to make bombs, like the one used in Oklahoma City in 1994, but not deadly assault weapons. That’s absurd. Tracking and limiting purchases of ammunition. Requiring that guns use smart-gun technology, which would dramatically reduce accidental deaths, particularly among children, who, according to a 2016 study, are dying accidental deaths at the hands of guns at the rate of one every other day. A national gun buyback program similar to the one Australia instituted after a mass shooting that killed 35 people. That incident was in 1996. There hasn’t been another one since, These proposals are essentially omitted from the national conversation largely because Democrats are scared that the NRA will spin them disingenuously to inflame gun owners. Again, Democrats presume their hand is the weaker of the two. Last week, Republicans rejoiced, and some Democrats winced privately, when Nancy Pelosi said she hoped regulation of bump stocks—the device the Las Vegas shooter used to make his weapon more deadly—would be a “slippery slope” to further regulation. Democrats were concerned that Pelosi had handed the NRA a political cudgel the group would brandish against every one of them. But Pelosi was right, and I would like to see more Democrats find her courage, because the alternative is to surrender our ideals, and the moral high ground, for no discernible upside. Written by former Obama staffer Dan Pfeiffer who seems absolutely in love with gun control. After all, he calls for a national gun buyback program similar to Australia’s but fails to inform his readers that the buyback was simply a more palatable gun confiscation program masquerading as choice. Then again, this is the guy who says this, followed by claiming, “Republicans currently control every branch of government and the NRA is still producing agitprop aimed at convincing gun owners that liberal Democrats and radical leftists are going to come after their guns.” He says this without a hint of irony at the fact that he is telling Democrats to come after our guns. The entire post is nothing more than a paper dedicated to trying to convince Democrats that the answer to guns is to move even more to the left on guns, to stop pretending that they don’t want all the guns, yet he has the nerve to blame the NRA for producing videos? It should be noted that the video he chose is the one where Dana Loesch calls out the leftist media for lying. It actually doesn’t say a thing about how Democrats want all the guns. Not that it matters to someone like Pfeiffer. All that matters is that Democrats aren’t being honest about coming after all of our guns. He’s annoyed they won’t be honest, but I’m going to let Dan know something. We already know they want them all, and that’s why no one is backing down. Especially since none of his proposals would have stopped Las Vegas.