Honest Talk About Gun Control.

Every time it happens, the radicals on both sides of the gun control issue come out of the woodwork.  The anti-gun folks go on the offensive and the pro-gun people gird up the defense.  If…if…we can somehow move to the center, there is much that can likely be agreed to. 

The President has the bully pulpit, and therefore the opportunity, to put together a group that can try to address this gun issue in a rational, responsible, and sane fashion.  It needs to be comprised of reasonable people from all sides of the argument; professional people who first know what they are talking about and secondly, can understand the threat of unintended consequences of actions taken in haste and without forethought.  The group needs to include a couple of legislative aides from Congress who can assist them in putting their findings in some type of legal context;  ready to be taken up by the Senate and House.  Oh…and the group needs to have the authority to put anyone who wants to behave as a radical idiot out of the room.

We all need to agree on some clear definitions.  Most of the public hears assault weapon and thinks machine gun.  We need to ditch both terms.  There are automatic and semi-automatic weapons.  Just because an AR-15 looks like something GI Joe carries, that doesn’t make it an assault weapon.  There are a lot of four and six cylinder cars out there that look fast sitting still; but can be outrun by a hopped-up moped.  The AR-15 is semi-automatic, only shoots once per trigger pull, sells like hotcakes because it looks badass, and can’t generate any more fire than my Winchester Model 94 lever action in the hands a capable marksman.  An automatic weapon, on the other hand, will shoot continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.  It is hard to see a place for this type of gun in our civilian population.  There are many civilian applications for a semi-automatic weapon.

Gun control laws alone are not the answer.  Crime statistics clearly show that some of the areas (Chicago, WDC…looking at you) with the strictest gun laws have some of the highest incidence of gun violence.  Good, well considered gun laws are appropriate; but gun laws by themselves cannot solve the complicated problems of gun violence.  Some think that a greater quantity of and more restrictive gun laws are the panacea to this problem; some would tolerate no restrictions on gun ownership whatsoever.  The reasonable position is somewhere in between.  It is true that someone must pull the trigger in order for a firearm to kill.   It is also true that there are people who should never put their hands on a firearm.  The common argument that “if they didn’t have a gun, they would have used something else to kill” may be valid, but there is no denying that most of us would rather face off against a maniac with a Louisville Slugger than a maniac with a 30-06 rifle.   People with evil intent will find a way to harm.  But as long as firearms continue to be their occasional weapon of choice; we need to figure out a better way to keep firearms out of the hands of these people.

There must be recognition that there are different needs for different types of firearms.  As mentioned before, it is very hard to envision a need for automatic weapons in the civilian population.  However, it is insane to expect our law enforcement personnel to do battle holding only semi-automatic weapons while criminals are wielding automatics.  Of course, we want our military to have state of the art firearms that are the most efficient available.  There are whole classes of security personnel whose special weaponry needs should be addressed.  Who should be allowed to own what kind of firearm is a big part of this issue. 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  So reads the Second Amendment.  You can wordsmith it any way you like; it will not be undone.  Each of us has a right to bear arms in the defense of ourselves, our families, and our freedoms.  That is never going to change.  Now the type of arms that we, the People, can bear is certainly up for discussion.  But anyone…anyone…who honestly believes that our government could compel its citizens to voluntarily surrender their arms is living in a fantasy world that far exceeds even the most sophisticated video game out there.  Consider for a moment that if Congress and the President were to pass some type of law that involved confiscation of existing arms; how on earth would they ever even begin to enforce such a law?  The Second Amendment comes about as close to the stone tablet analogy as anything out there.

Many of the anti-gun control crowd take the position that many of the less restrictive proposals presented by the pro folks are the equivalent of the camel getting its nose under the tent.  Its goes without saying that the entire camel will follow the nose.  For instance, some would say that if gun owners were required to register all of the firearms and report all transactions involving those arms, then that is simply laying the groundwork for the government to know where to go when they are ready to confiscate the arms.  As I mentioned earlier, I think confiscation is about as far-fetched as (insert your own simile).  But, any person who does not harbor some reservation about giving our government new and broad authorities over our personal liberties is naïve to the extreme.  Any new law relating to firearm registration and tracking is fraught with the possibility of evolving into something far more restrictive than was ever intended.  This is one area of the gun control discussion where middle ground will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. 

Registration aside, there is a large area between the gun control factions that is fertile ground for agreement.  Background checks, limits on the size of clips and magazines, outlawing certain accessories and modifications (bumpstocks), specific ownership restrictions for unstable individuals, and the distinction between types of weapons that has been previously mentioned; these are all items where compromise should be reachable by reasonable people. 

Something needs to be done.  Not something that is shallow and not carefully considered.  Not something to serve a political agenda.  Not something that violates the fundamental rights of every American citizen.  But the citizenry of our country is largely ignorant when it comes to firearms, the mechanics of firearm science, and the existing laws pertaining to firearms.  Somebody… somewhere…somehow… needs to stand up and become the voice of reason in this debate.  The publicity surrounding mass shootings has become such that the public outrage demands that, at a minimum, our Government recognizes the problem that exists about how we as people handle our arms.  The President is correct in saying that the one common thread running through these episodes is mental instability.  That must be addressed.  But there just as clearly needs to be a reconsideration of our gun laws and how they are administered.