The purpose of a headline used to be that it would give you a very basic idea of something that happened. In the age of the internet, you can't really do that. You have to entice people a little bit. Yeah, some consider that clickbait, but the truth of the matter is that if you do headlines like newspapers used to, no one clicks and reads the article.

But they should still be accurate.

So, when I saw one about a New Yorker's take on gun control running in a Florida publication, I had an idea of what to expect. After all, we know the differences between those two states when it comes to guns.

Yet what I got was not what I expected.

May we all join hands and visualize peace, a world without any firearms. But what if that doesn’t work?

Once every American turns in all the 400 million firearms what then? Utopia? National peace? What about, say, the 50 million guns that disappear and don’t get turned in?

Will criminals and terrorists be forced to turn in their guns as they’ve done with illegal drugs for 60 years?

Will all people give up their guns, their knives, their slingshots, their arrows, their clubs, their rocks, and their hands to never assault another person again? Should I give up on being able to protect myself and just die at the hands of an evil person bent on harming me or others?

Is it now perfectly safe to walk the streets and ride the subway in New York City? Thank God the police and now the National Guard are there to protect me 24/7!  (New York gun control – we got it for the law-abiding citizens but not so much for criminals, gangs, terrorists, etc.)

Of course, the short answer to some of those questions is no, none of that will happen, and the author knows it. Obviously.

By presenting this rather absurdly, he highlights much of the issues with the gun debate. As we point out regularly here, gun control doesn't stop criminals from continuing to break the law. It only stops the law-abiding.

For some, that's a terrible argument. "Criminals still commit murder. Are you suggesting we shouldn't have laws against that, either?"

The difference is that laws against things like murder, burglary, etc don't stop regular people from protecting themselves while simultaneously doing nothing to disarm criminals.

A law against murder means that no matter how annoyed I get at someone, I can't murder them. It inhibits me from doing something that hurts another--assuming, of course, there are no morals preventing me from doing it already.

Gun control, on the other hand, stops me from just having a gun or carrying it somewhere, all while criminals have no such restraint.

Telling me I can't break into someone's home and take their stuff doesn't prevent me from defending myself or my family. Telling me I can't have a gun? That's entirely different, especially when we can plainly see gun control doesn't stop the criminals in the least.

If it did, a lot more people might be open to at least talking about it. As things currently stand, that's just not happening.