EXCERPT:
LIBRESCO: “One of the places it has to start is being scrupulously honest about what you push for and being aware when you have blind spots. One of the things most startling to me is there’s plenty of gun policy where the data are murky. We’ve really had a deficit of research in this country on gun deaths. The CDC has been held back from researching them as a public health issue. Beyond that, there’s just a pattern of people who are in favor of gun control speaking ignorantly. The assault weapons ban itself, when assault weapons aren’t a real category, which isn’t a thing I knew. I used to be in favor of the assault weapons ban until I read more deeply and found out that an assault weapon is the basic base of a semi-automatic gun that’s had too many features snapped onto it when you purchase it. But once you purchase it you can add those back on basically like Lego bricks and it’s fine. When we say that, gun owners know that you’re speaking from ignorance. So, I think the most important way of outreach is to speak from experience and if you don’t have that, reach out to people with curiosity and let them instruct you and then return to them with the policies you're interested in.”