Guns Are Just Like Seatbelts

Because we couldn't make it to the gun ban public hearing, we've been trying to catch up via online accounts of the meeting. "I personally view carrying a gun as kind of like wearing a seatbelt," one of the opponents of the ban said, caught on tape by King5. "You'll probably never need it but I still buckle up." (Of course, in a car crash the seatbelt would probably be a net positive, while a gun would just rattle around in your glove box.) Other opponents argued that the ban would prevent law-abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves against gun-toting criminals. Proponents of Nickels' questionably legal executive order were, of course, concerned about accidental firings. Still no conversation, at least not recorded in the accounts we've read, about addressing gun violence from the angle of making guns and/or bullets (and/or seatbelts, which are just like guns) more difficult to obtain--our favorite angle.