But bullet control might attract broader support.
It's pretty clear that implementing gun control is impossible in the U.S. There are already an estimated 150 million guns in civilian hands in America. Even a generous buyback program like Australia's would leave tens of millions of guns in public hands. Arguing about gun control makes dealing with America's terrorist-gun-death problem difficult.
But bullet control could provide gun lovers the benefits they want and prevent the most terrifying aspects of gun terrorism. If terrorists can't arm themselves with hundreds of bullets, they can't kill hundreds of people.
The first question is: what do we want to stop by regulating guns?
Many liberals would like to lower any gun deaths. Conservatives might argue that gun deaths can be beneficial in some cases: self defense or preventing home invasions or protecting others from violence. Those gun deaths are good things, they would say. Some libertarians might argue that allowing people to use guns to commit suicide (about half of U.S. gun deaths) is a valuable freedom.
But almost no one outside of ISIS would argue that mass killings of uninvolved civilians are a good thing. And mass killings are becoming the terrorists' weapons of choice. Civilians are justifiably terrified by the idea of people with automatic rifles coming into a school or a concert hall or a workplace Christmas party and shooting the people gathered there. There are anti-government survivalists who want thousands of rounds of ammunition to protect themselves from potential attacks by the federal government. But that's not a Constitutionally sanctioned purpose or one that many regular citizens would support.
Many of the standard gun control proposals don't really address mass killings. Handguns are not used to kill large numbers of people. Shotguns don't kill large numbers. Many rifles can be altered to fire a series of rounds.
But it's very difficult to use guns to commit mass murder if the owners can't get bullets.
Gun buyers have a variety of ways to get guns -- retail stores, gun shows, private sales, theft, black market.
But buying ammunition is a traditional retail activity, in stores or over the Internet. Ammunition is made by a handful of companies compared to several thousand who make gun. That makes it much more amenable to regulation.
People don't need much ammunition in their homes. A magazine with six or eight shots is ample to prevent any home invasion -- more than enough for suicide or threatening a neighbor. Even a hunting trip rarely involves pulling the trigger more than four or five times. So the government could simply prohibit sales of more than 10 bullets at a time by any retailer.
Target shooters use a lot more ammunition at shooting ranges. But it would be possible to license ranges to sell bullets and keep track of their usage so shooters couldn't walk off with large stockpiles.
Controlling bullets would be a way to greatly reduce the risk of a few terrorists killing masses of people with firearms. It could be done at the federal level, eliminating the problem of patchwork laws and guns moving across state lines. And it wouldn't need to impinge on the legitimate self-defense and hunting needs of gun owners.
