Listen closely. That sound you hear is the sound of a cultural paranoia by people who have lost their grip on the reins of power, and on reality, and who fear the worst is coming. And they are preparing for it, whatever it may be — a war, a revolution, an apocalypse. These extremists make sensible, reasonable gun control hard to discuss, let alone achieve in this country, because they skew the conversations away from common-sense solutions on which both rational gun owners and non-gun owners can agree. These people, a vocal minority, have extreme fears — gun confiscation, widespread...