So I'm thinking about guns. All kinds of them. The kind that kill, the kind that protects, the kind that goes between Lawyers and Money and the warm kind that goes after "Happiness is". Even the water guns I used to have fun with.
I have many friends who own guns. Every single one of them is a responsible gun owner. If I thought he/she wasn't "right" (as they say in the south), then I probably wouldn't be friends with them. I haven't polled them about gun rights or what to do about our epidemic of gun violence. But I suspect most, if not all, of them would go all "2nd amendment" on me.
I have probably more friends who don't own guns, as far as I know. Most of them want to see legislation passed, of some kind, to address the madness that's afflicting us. There's no consensus on what they'd like to see. Just "something".
Me, I've never owned a gun in my life. Never intend to. If I do, then I guess I've given up on any hope of a civil society. I may as well build a moat and buy some gators.
I have a natural tendency to mediate things. In this case, to try and find common ground between my two groups of friends. And in fact, there is one important thing in common. That is, we don't want to see any more tragedies like the three we've encountered in about a week. How we address it however is where the common ground ends. On one extreme is my more liberal friends who think that they can take on the NRA. Ain't gonna happen. Just won't. Even Obama doesn't want to take them on.
On the other end are people who think that if everyone packed, then crimes like this won't happen. My gut feeling is that a mass tragedy like this is, in fact, less likely to happen. Simply because someone with a gun might kill the perp as soon as he loads. But...there are problems here that are far worse than the supposed solution:
1: What if the vigilante misses his target?
2: More importantly, what's to stop someone with a gun from killing someone while their head is turned? Or if they're sleeping?
3: If someone is packing and is drunk or otherwise impaired, think he'll be deterred by the possibility of someone else packing? I doubt it.
4: What about a serial killer who uses subterfuge to commit his crime? Think he'll care about the consequences? On the contrary, he'd probably welcome the challenge.
5: Most of all, what does this do to normal civil discourse? Are we now supposed to be scared of disagreeing because the person might blow our brains out? What about talking with strangers? Which is something I actually like to do. I know I'd think twice before having a conversation with someone I just met. You never know...maybe I'll say the wrong thing and get killed over it.
What do we do then? Well, here are three suggestions:
1: Flag people with certain mental illnesses (not enough knowledge to state which ones) so that they cannot own a gun. And make sure that this firewall applies only to this population.
2: Assure the overwhelming majority of law abiding gun owners that their rights are not being threatened.
3: Monitor anyone, mental illness or not, who buys certain automatic weapons and/or large quantities of ammunition over specific periods of time. Had this been done, perhaps the Aurora, CO tragedy could have been prevented. Same for Oak Creek, WI.
These suggestions won't stop all the insanity. But they could help. I challenge anyone who disagrees to come up with their own suggestions.
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