Oh dear. I’m being deluged with letters from readers who are keen to point out to me that fully automatic weapons have been banned in the U.S. since the 1930s. I know that. Perhaps I wasn’t clear.

I was simply trying to observe that some gun control is good. Though here’s a thought experiment: If machine guns were legal and someone proposed banning them today, would they succeed?

Anyway, my larger point, though I’m not a fan of guns, is that gun control will not work, and that attempts to regulate them run into the same logical problems that nuclear weapons banners face — namely that it’s not the weapons, but who possesses them, that counts.