Hillary Clinton wants you to know one thing about her position on gun control: “I’m not here to repeal the Second Amendment. I’m not here to take away your guns.”
She elaborated further on her comments, which she made at her Democratic National Convention speech accepting the presidential nomination: “I just don’t want you to be shot by someone who shouldn't have a gun in the first place. We should be working with responsible gun owners to pass commonsense reforms and keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists, and all others who would do us harm.”
Clinton is essentially sticking to the stance that Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have followed over the past few years: They want to restrict certain weapons and keep certain people from getting guns, but they’re not interested in taking away everyone’s firearms.
As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, it’s unclear if such a limited policy would go far enough.
America has extraordinary levels of gun violence compared with other developed nations. At the same time, the US also has a lot of guns — the most civilian-owned firearms out of any country in the world.
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Those two problems are linked: The research has consistently shown that more guns lead to more gun violence — in terms of homicides, suicides, domestic violence, and even violence against police.
While more restrictions would likely have an effect, the core problem is America simply has far too many guns. So to really solve America’s gun problem, the US will likely have to reduce the number of guns. That will likely require taking some people’s guns away.
