In my Utopia, the gun laws will be simple: no guns at all except (a) ordinary rifles for hunters of game and (b) usual weapons of the military, the police, and specially authorized people. Period.

What stands in the way of that as law in the United States? An array: the gun manufacturers, their trade associations, gun aficionados, reluctant congressmen, the Second Amendment, and, finally, the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).