Gun Control: A Starting Point.  As part of the preamble to this conversation, we must indict about 75-85 percent of the vocal critics of gun owners due their hypocrisy.  Any actor, musician, or tech game marketer has no moral validity in criticizing gun owners.  Clean up your own house and shut the $#@ up!

Like many of the emotional issues that are currently swirling in our country these days (abortion, capital punishment, gay rights), the debate on gun control is dominated by the extremists on either side of the argument.  It is entirely possible that the broad swath of people in the middle could agree on many steps that could actually improve the gun environment in our nation.  Let’s attempt to seek that middle ground.

Gun ownership is a right; but it is also a privilege.  And as with any privilege, it carries responsibility with it.  Any responsible gun owner should be willing to register their weapons and report sales or transfers.  The fear that action of this type is a “foot in the door” to confiscation is valid given the extremism of the anti-gun lobby, but that argument is insufficient to the principle of holding gun owners responsible for movement of their weapons.

Automatic weapons should not be legally owned by the public.  I am defining automatic weapons as one that can have its trigger depressed, held, and thus empty the clip.  There is no place in the private sector for this type of gun and its ownership should be restricted to military, police, and selected security applications.  A serious debate should take place regarding semi-automatic weapons; those that require successive trigger pulls for firing (this category would include many assault rifles).  It is a knee-jerk reaction to include these guns in the same breath as automatics, since a practiced gunperson can fire just about as quickly with a lever-action rifle or other types of guns.  There is also a legitimate place in sport for semi-automatic guns; whether you agree with the sport or not. 

Existing gun laws must be enforced; uniformly and consistently across our entire nation.  If this requires some type of federal precedence over state law, so be it.  There has to be improved co-ordination and communication between law enforcement agencies from state to state and inter-agency at the federal level.  This can only be accomplished if the set of laws applying to the purchase, ownership, and transfer of guns are uniform across the country.  The commission of crimes with guns must have mandatory sentences and these sentences must also be applied uniformly across the country, regardless of the political leaning of the judge.  As this area is explored, our lawmakers must take a minimalist approach, starting first with a careful discussion and examination of existing gun law before adding new layers of bureaucracy to legal enforcement.  There must be a balance between the rights of gun ownership with the right to public safety.

It is patently ridiculous that gun shows do not conform to the same law as gun shops within the same state.  This loophole must be closed.  Gun and sporting shows will survive, but the process of gun transfer will simply be more restrictive and burdensome.  Once again…This should not be prohibitive and should respect the right of free trade, within the confines of the same laws that apply to the gun shops.

There is so much hyperbole floating around in the gun control discussion.   It is true that people kill, not guns.  Last year, more homicides were committed with hammers and clubs than with guns.  It is also true that an unbalanced sociopath can walk out of a gun show with a lethal weapon with little or no trouble at all.  Each side must begin to respect the concerns of the other without staking out “lines in the sand” prior to debate.  If the middle does not find a way to bring a semblance of reason to this debate, I fear one side or the other will eventually realize a false victory that is misconceived as righteous.