To Buy a Gun, You Should Need a Doctor's Note

We require a doctor’s note to buy certain medications—why not to buy guns? In the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, pundits have talked unendingly about what role violent political rhetoric might have played in the shooting. But the real issue is a "dead debate, lost long ago": how an insane person got a semi-automatic, laments John Cook of Gawker. Jared Lee Loughner “was too crazy for community college,” he writes, “but not too crazy to buy a Glock.”

“Ask yourself which measure ... would have been more likely to prevent [the killings]: a pledge from Sarah Palin to refrain from violent rhetoric, or a requirement in Arizona that all gun sales be accompanied by a note from a mental health professional,” Cook writes. Lots of people are proposing the former, but almost no one the latter. “Because gun control is a loser. America would rather have mass killings … than reasonable restrictions on the rights of crazy people to buy guns.” (More Jared Lee Loughner stories.)