A statement like "the government shouldn't" is a value-laden one that the recipient needs to be talked into through a good case being made for it That's not ho

A statement like "the government shouldn't" is a value-laden one that the recipient needs to be talked into through a good case being made for it That's not how the government in the U.S. is supposed to operate. You're supposed to have to make a strong case for "the government should..." The benefit is that gun possession by criminals might be reduced eventually? That's speculative, depends on enforcement tactics, and ignores that violent crime rates are not a simple function of criminal gun possession; it is a complicated function including culture, criminal gun possession, deterrent effect of non-criminal gun possession, police presence, specific factors inducing gun crime (including gangs and drug turf wars, or drug addiction), and the environment of the local neighborhood. The cost of a gun ban in the U.S. is that it would require tens of millions of citizens to forfeit property, and it removes one option they have for defending themselves. Even if you successfully make a case that guns should be banned, there's a nearly insurmountable obstacle: that a gun ban would be unconstitutional.