New Gun Control Efforts: Prudence or Performance?

President Biden promises to fight crime, but his gun control proposals prove only to be enlightening examples of how public policy has become performative and imprudent. Policy becomes imprudent when it offers very little marginal gain but extracts a very high cost in liberty and undermines what Hayek praised as legal predictability. Policy debates become “performative” when politicians, pundits, and celebrities not only play to type but are driven more by fantasy than reality.

Perhaps we can all be forgiven a little fantasy given the events of the last year. If our lives were films, “Outbreak” gave way to “The Omega Man,” and then “Do the Right Thing.” Betrayal by elites elicited conspiracies on par with “The Manchurian Candidate.” Violent crime is rising for the first time in over two decades. Think “Death Wish” or “Dirty Harry.” It is therefore not surprising that Americans have rushed to buy guns and ammo over the last year, redoubling their efforts when candidate Biden’s ambitious gun control plans made him America’s greatest gun salesman, as was his boss before him.

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