One Car A Month

For years, proponents of limiting the number of guns that can be purchased each month by an individual have stated, "who needs more than one gun anyway?" You can only accurately fire one (maybe two) at a time, and why would anyone need to buy more than one gun per month?

How right they are. A person probably does not need more than one gun. With that in mind, I'd like to propose another law that follows the same reasoning. We know that cars kill thousands of people each year. They are clearly designed to break the law and potentially cause harm to others, as evidenced by their ability to reach speeds that far exceed legal speed limits. Cars contain flammable substances and cause pollution; even when they are not driven, the gasoline they contain slowly evaporates into the air. What if a car were left unlocked and unattended -- think of the children! And, of course, you can only drive one car at a time. Why does anyone need more than one car?

People who may have had firearms ruined or lost to a natural disaster, fire, or theft (including government seizure), are subject to their state's one-gun-per-month restriction.* I include government seizure only after watching the evening news and seeing police enter a home in New Orleans, find firearms, and confiscate them. To the news anchors, it seemed to be a normal occurrence and nothing to cause alarm. (I suppose it's not looting if you're taking necessities such as food and water -- or if you are police loading someone else's firearms into your boat.) However, if you previously owned six firearms, it will take you at least five full months to replace them if you start buying them immediately at the maximum allowable rate. This unnecessarily increases the transactions costs associated with replacing lost firearms. Rather than replacing them all in one transaction, the individual must return to the dealer five additional times. This makes as much sense as going to the grocery store every day of the week when you could have purchased everything for the week in one trip.

One gun per month restrictions accomplish as much as "one car per month" restrictions would, and are equally, if not more, absurd.


*Not all states have a 'one-gun-a-month' restriction, but there has been vocal support for making this a federal law.