I happen to agree with your basic premise. The men who founded this country had a profound fear of the tyranny they left behind in Europe. As Jefferson said,

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."

So yes, it's fairly simple to argue that the Second Amendment absolutely permits the average citizen to possess the same weapons used by the military. Just like the Swiss where every household with a male who has completed his compulsory military service has a Sturmgeweher in the closet.

But let's be real, shall we? That is no more likely to take place than passing the necessary Constitutional Amendment to ban private gun ownership.

So what should be done to reduce gun deaths? The fact remains that US gun violence is significantly higher than any other Western First World country. As long as this is true, liberal outlets will claim it's due to the ubiquity of guns, correlation/causation be damned.

Any serious discussion of gun deaths cannot ignore the simple demographic facts. Per a substack post by Robert VerBruggen:

"Between the 2018–2019 and 2020–2021 periods, the black homicide rate went up by about 40 percent and the white one by 15 percent — already a glaring disparity. But since the black homicide rate started out so much higher than the white one, this translated to an increase of just 0.4 per 100,000 for whites and 9.7 per 100,000 for blacks — nearly 25 times as large. The increase in the black homicide rate was greater than the total homicide rate for the nation as a whole."

Since these deaths among the black community are more likely than not committed with illegally obtained guns, new laws are not going to impact gun deaths where they most frequently occur. As Cesare Beccaria wrote in On Crimes and Punishments, discussing false concepts of utility:

"The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent."

You now might ask, if I believe these things, why didn't I denounce Kristof's op-ed as vociferously as yourself?

Because I am interested in productive dialogue, something that exists rarely in our polarized culture. Is it possible we can do something besides knee-jerk political window dressing? Can we address the elephant in the room, the huge disparity in how gun violence impacts black communities? Can we care as much about those gunned down in crossfires and by stray bullets as we seem to care about those committing the crimes?

I doubt it. But at least this op-ed tried. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all. And it is infinitely better than spouting rhetoric that does nothing but inflame the other side. From both extremes.