Though I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s well argued, I agree with the general principle: problems are generally much more complex than they seem from the outside. It&#x27;s interesting that you mention gun control, because if I talk to my European relatives their answer is &quot;make them illegal&quot; as if Americans are too stupid to work this out on their own. The fact that you even say &quot;solution&quot; to something not everyone agrees is even a problem is an example of how difficult policy is to make in the US. I deal in my day job with a large homeless population and I can tell you the vast majority of policy discussions I have rotate around &quot;what is the problem?&quot; before we even begin to discuss solutions. And that&#x27;s not bringing in the people themselves, who may not see the situation as a problem at all.<p>So I agree that the article is a bit provincial, but I also agree that a very in depth understanding on issues and their complexity is often required, and very difficult to achieve from the outside.<p>Incidentally, this is why, at least in my experience, federal programs are so inefficient compared to state programs which are, in turn inefficient compared to local ones. This isn&#x27;t to say that they don&#x27;t all have their place, especially when it comes to enforcing consistent standards in a large geographical region, but it&#x27;s definitely the people closest to an issue that have the biggest impact.