Either way, I think it was a foolish thing to say.
It was stated very inartfully, IMHO. Had he expressed it more precisely I don't believe it would be as tendentious as it has been.
If all guns were magically gone tomorrow, the violence in society would likely increase quite a bit. Even if you restrict it to just the govt, the same would happen.
On the other side of that, the 2nd Amendment doesn't really apply to criminals.... or I mean to say that laws have little effect on those that are not law abiding.
True and true. With perhaps as many as one million defensive uses of guns per year in America, I think you could count on that number as a base for the number in increased murders and other violent crimes. That might easily increase as criminals increased their activities as they discovered how successful they could be.
And no laws apply to criminals.
I was listening to Faux snews' Bill O'Reilly repeat his opinion their should be a gun registry today on his show. He keeps responding that people who point out its flaws are being "theoretical."
I don't think O'Reilly knows that there have been several major court decisions that state that you can't actually force "criminals" to register their guns, as it violates their
5th amendment rights. Therefor, any criminal thus arrested solely for an unregistered gun would be released by the judge if O'Reilly's law were to be actually enacted, as it would be a violation of those aforesaid court decisions afirming 5th amendment protections.