What Is "Common Sense" About Guns?

'Gun control' advocates speak constantly about "common sense gun laws". The phrase runs trippingly off the tongue. Rights advocates respond that most existing gun laws, and all proposed laws, defy "common sense".

This phrase "common sense", as used in the gun debate, contradicts the plain meaning of the term, so it obscures any honest search for truth. A definition of the phrase is: "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts". But to be characterized as "common", a belief or conclusion must be a consensus, at least by a super-majority of those polled. It need only be a "simple" "perception" of the facts, not the result of thorough dispassionate investigation and analysis.

In any case, common sense may boil down to either:

1) the best we can know of the subject under prevailing circumstances; or,

2) nonsense, complete error.

There is much that meets the first definition. There is a consensus that Presidents Trump and Clinton are womanizers. And, that Vice President Biden cannot speak without putting his foot in his mouth. Likewise, much meets the second definition. For example, the common belief that the human body breaths to satisfy its craving for oxygen. It needs oxygen to function, but that's not what drives respiration. We breathe because our bodies abjure carbon dioxide, which is the byproduct of consuming oxygen.

That we so vigorously debate the wisdom of 'gun control' proposals, requires rejecting their characterization as "common sense". There is no consensus. .....