Amazing how so many of us here understand that making guns illegal doesn't take them out of the hands of criminals but our governments still want us to believe that's why they're banning the private ownership of guns right and left. It doesn't make sense.
Unless that's not really the reason . . . .
No, it is the reason. There's this strange mentality, and I see it all the time, that if you make something illegal, people won't do it. Well, of course that's true with law-abiding citizens, but not with criminals. The assumption, I assume, is that criminals are deterred from doing illegal things fore fear of punishment . . . except that they aren't, which is why they are criminals . . . there's also the urge to "do something" whether it is useful or no. I don't see conspiracy here . . . I see futile attempts to try and remedy problems by controlling what CAN be controlled . . . namely people who respect the law. The fact that they are, generally, not the problem, doesn't dawn on the lawmakers . . . I suspect because most of them DO obey the law . . . and don't understand why other people don't.
That said, there are other policy reasons, I just disagree with them . . . if gun sales are illegal, there will, eventually, be fewer physical guns around. That's true, though here it would take forever. If people don't have guns in their houses, there will be fewer gun accidents and gun suicides . . . also true, but I don't think that's really the government's business. Then there's just the assumption that guns are dangerous (true enough) and no one has a really legitimate reason to have one (they usually arent' fond of hunting either) and the police are there to protect you, so why let people have one? Those are all valid enough reasons, if impractical (like the police protecting you . . I don't keep an officer in my back pocket), and nannish . . . but they aren't irrational.