Some people belief that people are inherently good, and they only do bad things when the temptation is at hand. Thus if you eliminate the temptation everyone returns to being good. This was the idea that led to the prohibition of alcohol. The only reason most people supported it though was because they assumed it didn't mean the alcohol that they used.
Prohibition doesn't work because it’s dependent on the concept that humans are inherently good and seek to do good things. However like all animals, humanity is inherently neutral and motivated by short term advantage. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, prohibition against drugs hasn't worked, the war on drugs has never been anything but a failure, and why we think a prohibition against guns will work is ridiculous. Morality though legislation never works. And in the end, that’s what we are trying to do, “remove the guns and people will be good”.
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes."
In order for law that restricts or bans something, in other words remove what is already there, it takes the entire population acting as enforcement to work. Whereas creating something like a national healthcare system can be accomplished by an organization with the funding and acceptance of the American people. Since the vast majority of people who support gun control are not willing to provide enforcement of those laws themselves, it’s like the prohibition on alcohol. Once the supporters got the laws passed, they left it up to a government that had absolutely nowhere near the resources to properly enforce the laws. With the prohibition on drugs, it’s the same thing; the government has nowhere near the resources to enforce the law to any effective degree.
From what I have seen, the only thing that works in eliminating a widespread problem is widespread education. It was the primary force that led and still leads the fight against racism and sexism. Both have seen far more progress than has ever been seen with prohibition.
