Even though Tribune columnist Joe Tarica recently pooh-poohed the idea, the “slippery slope” of gun control is real, if other countries are a guide. For example, both the United Kingdom and Australia have each gone through a predictable sequence of ever-sterner gun restrictions, ending with virtually no private gun ownership.

Here in the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is upheld by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, permanently banning “assault weapons” here would establish a big precedent — denying certain guns, legally manufactured and sold, constitutional protection. Other guns would follow, until, like the U.K. and Australia, there would eventually be none in private hands and the Second Amendment would become meaningless rhetoric.

Thus, gun control could ultimately achieve a total gun ban in this country, in spite of the Constitution — a “slippery slope,” indeed.