The endgame for some gun control advocates is banning the personal ownership of firearms. Let us make no mistake. This is not the end goal for all gun control advocates, but it is for a not insignificant amount. Regardless of how guns are banned, outright or in-part, it will involve a program or system to find and then seize the firearms present in the US.
No other culture has the ideals of individualism and self-reliance tied to gun ownership in a way the US does. Guns, and their possession by the individual, have been a part of American culture very nearly from the start. The second amendment to the US constitution wasn't a prescription for private ownership of arms, it was a reflection of the reality that already existed. The scale of gun ownership in the US cannot be overstated. Estimates approach 400 million firearms being owned by American civilians. This number is nearly one third to one half of all firearms worldwide.
Systems and programs that have worked in other countries and nations to ban private ownership of firearms simply have no parallel to what would be required to disarm the American populace.
A thought exercise: how would we go about removing guns from American households?
Programs or systems where people can turn in guns for cash. This will likely get a small portion of guns off the streets and out of the hands of some Americans. Families who have hand-me-down firearms but no interest in collecting, owning, or possessing firearms will happily take the free money. As far as making a significant change in total ownership this has a low likelihood of dramatically reducing overall ownership.
Similar to the above but the difference being that ownership has become illegal and recompense for the turned-in firearm is missing or lacking. Some gun owners will prefer to be law abiding rather than continue to hold onto their firearms. However, this is likely not even a large minority of owners, who typically have a very strong stance on gun ownership being an inalienable right.
A program or system where a government agency is sent out to seize guns. This will be the final required step even if either of the above two programs (or similar) are first fielded. The scale of this initiative cannot be understated. It would require searching every American home and residence and directly seizing firearms. This would require one of two options: deploying existing police and/or military forces or creating a new policing agency specifically for this program.
Both cases should give anyone considering a gun ban pause. In the first case it could mean literally turning the US military against its own citizens in a colossal operation that likely would violate other protected rights in the process. In addition to the problems in involving the military, this first option should present another obvious problem. We already have significant issues in and around our existing policing agencies and infrastructure.
As has been obvious in recent times, we have a problem with use of force by our police departments. This use of force disproportionately affects minorities. To believe that a search and seizure program on the scale required would not impact minorities more harshly is naive at best and malicious at worst.
Even in the case of non-minorities we would be granting near absolute power to an agency or policing force to enter and search every residence in the US. Make no mistake, you could be a staunch gun control advocate, strongly against ownership of firearms, and so forth - yet you would still be required to let the agency enter and search your residence and all of your property. Your claims of non-ownership could not be accepted anymore than an actual gun owner's. There would be no 'free pass' for gun control advocates, the program would fail if it was not universal without any exceptions. The search and seizure would have to be all-encompassing and thorough. Guns, after all, can be small and hidden easily.
Anything less than this system and program of seizure would result in vast numbers of firearms remaining in private hands, effectively making the gun ban useless other than criminalizing huge swaths of the populace who would still contend it is their right to bear arms. It would be the largest police action against a populace ever attempted in modern history, if not all of history. Over 125 million households would have their property and residences searched by policing or military forces.
Just creating a task force large enough to accomplish this would require increasing our military or police forces by a massive amount, if it is even possible to assemble such an agency. Agents would need to be deployed with overwhelming force and firepower to ensure the safety of the seizing operatives. We'd be granting this agency or forces unprecedented power and authority never seen in the United States before. And this in a time when we are struggling to keep our existing police forces in check for use and abuses of power and authority.
Enacting a gun ban in the US would require a large scale atrocity against the rights of people to be safe and secure in their homes and would require systematic violation of the rights of every American.
To conclude, an outright gun ban is simply not feasible both at a technical level or a moral one. Those who advocate stronger gun control need to be clear that they do not favor or even want to consider an outright banning of gun ownership in the US. Anyone proposing a gun ban tacitly approves of totalitarian and fascist policies being enacted against the public at large.