That their grief may not be compounded.

At long last, the editors of America endorse a constitutional buttress to the culture of life.

Supporting the Human Life Amendment? Surely you jest. Politics is strictly about the art of the possible when it comes to abortion.

No, no--one must be realistic about such things.

Instead, we need to repeal the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The reason: something must be done so that urban, left-leaning Jesuits can feel better about themselves:

The disturbing feeling that we have failed to do everything in our power to remove the material cause of their deaths, however, will no longer compound our grief.

For some reason, there are exceptions:

This does not require an absolute ban on firearms. In the post-repeal world that we envision, some people will possess guns: hunters and sportsmen, law enforcement officers, the military, those who require firearms for morally reasonable purposes.

As an aside, please, please, I beg you: stop pretending you give a rat's fanny about hunting. Deep down, we know you hate it, but somehow you feel compelled to offer insincere boilerplate respect. You can stop now. Besides, hunting firearms are more devastating than ones that make you queasy. Just flop your cards on the table and admit you don't approve of any significant private ownership of firearms. Dialogue requires openness, don't you know?

Anyway, there's a yawning logical inconsistency here: why should an off-duty approved firearm owner be allowed to keep it when he is off the clock? At the end of the day, such individuals should turn them in to a secure area until they punch back in. Even soldiers aren't toting weapons around all the time outside of combat zones. As the editors note, original sin (!) ensures bad things will happen, and cops are quite capable of misusing firearms, as we have been recently reminded. Thus, in Americaworld, there is no reason anyone to own a firearm off duty.

Go after violent media? Nah. That's Legion of Decency, Catholic-ghetto stuff. Shudder.

Revisit our oft-idiotic drug war? Piffle. Nope.

What it boils down to is that nobody at America owns a firearm or likes anyone who owns one. In policymaking, this is known as the It's Time We All Start Making Sacrifices, Starting With You, Of Course! manuever.

Did it ever occur to them to, you know, actually talk to an actual gun owner before promulgating this un-papal bull? Apparently not. Dialogue's only for people the Catholic left respect, I guess.

Nope--it's time to tear an Amendment out of the Constitution and unchain Caesar to kick doors in to remove unapproved firearms from our midst. If you like the drug war, you'll plotz over the gun war.

However, to be fair, there is a moral upside to the proposal: should, in this post-Second Amendment dream world of the America editorial board, your family or friends be harmed by a criminal who could have been stopped by a firearm, at least the editors' grief will not be compounded by the knowledge that unapproved citizens owned guns. That’s a comforting thought for hospital visits and/or the funeral Mass, don't you think?