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In that Progressive universe you mentioned, they all get to start with a clean slate to build their ideal societies, which is why no progressive society ever works out as they imagine. You don't start from tabula rasa. You start, in this case, with a population that (1) enjoys shooting, and (2) owns more guns than there are people. From there to a disarmed society is not going to be something they'll be able to legislate and then farm out. In post-revolutionary Russia or Nazi Germany, sure. Completely different starting points.

Social visionaries don't like to be reminded that there's real dirt under their feet and that the pawns they're counting on are real people who push back. These are "revolutionaries" who apparently think that once they pass a law everyone will fall in line. That is a blind spot of shocking proportion. If the Australian experience is any guide we won't see any eruption of violence, we'll see an eruption of civil disobedience and gun owners who go underground. Some of this is already taking place in California. It doesn't turn out to be liberal fantasy-land because it never was.