“Are you really anti-gun,” I asked, “meaning that you oppose a senior citizen from having protection in their own home or a divorcee with a restraining order against a bully ex-husband being able to have a gun, or would you more accurately describe yourself as anti-violence?” A few people nearby heard us and turned their heads, expectantly waiting along with me as she considered her answer. “Yes, I suppose that’s a better description. I’m just sick of all the violence.” I shook her hand and said, “So am I, and I’m an NRA member.” She and our onlookers seemed genuinely surprised, and it touched-off a friendly side-conversation after the meeting that had more people gathering around me than the Senator! There was no yelling, but some very sincere questions posed by people who, up until then, hadn’t thought much about firearms beyond the bad stuff they saw paraded by on the nightly news or in action movies. A lot of them thanked me, shook hands and uttered words that were all too familiar: “Why haven’t I heard this anywhere else?”
It was that sincerity and open-minded inquisitiveness that struck me the most. Whether you’re a member of the “Million Mom March” or the NRA, everyone wants their kids to be safe in school, their neighborhoods free of gangs and crime, and not feel like walking up to the corner store is a risk to life and limb. That’s a huge patch of common ground!
In this spirit, I write these paragraphs to begin a process of sorts; a coming-together of our collective concerns and brainpower. Political agendas must be set aside in favor of progress. To have a real impact on violent crime, while at the same time preserving our hard-won rights and freedoms, we must focus on what works and dispel any false assumptions or misinformation that is readily supplied by those with other agendas. We need to carefully distinguish between fact and opinion, and the impossible from the fanciful. We need to acknowledge that the fears of both sides of the debate have merit: we are ALL responsible for the safety of our children and our neighborhoods.
Hopefully we’re all in agreement thus far.
The big disagreements seem to come from ideas on how to combat violent crime. Let’s go through some of those ideas and consider their efficacy…
Although there are some 20,000 different laws on the books regulating firearms, from manufacture right on through shipping, advertising, sale, use and storage, there seems to be an idea among some groups that our gun laws are “lax” or lacking in some regard. They call for more laws. Yet when asked, those they suggest are either already on the books in some form making them redundant, or they might be impractical or even illegal. Even if a great new law could be created, isn’t the definition of “criminal” that of someone who BREAKS the law? Do gangs or the mentally ill stop their behavior because of what the law might say?
Obviously they do not. Good laws do have their place, of course. They can give police and prosecutors the tools they need to catch, convict and jail violent offenders. Penalties for committing a shooting or other assault should be harsh enough to both give the rational person pause and the criminal a good, long and perhaps permanent stay behind bars. Still, we need to face the fact that laws have their limitations, one of them being that they cannot prevent a crime.
Another common idea is to “get rid of the guns.” After all, there can be no shootings if there are no guns, right? It seems simple! Yes; too simple to be true. The U.S. Census bureau reports that there are about 150 million cell phone subscribers (as of 2003). The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that as of 2005, there are 62 million registered vehicles on U.S. roads, along with another 6.4 million that aren’t registered, for a grand total of just over 68 million. In comparison, it is estimated that there are some 200 million guns in circulation in the United States, or nearly one for every other American household! Not only is it very hard for the average person to truly comprehend such a number, but also reveals the immensity of the undertaking. By sheer number alone, guns would be nearly impossible to totally cleanse ourselves of!
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