Can we talk?

Are ‘sensible’ gun limits so off base we can’t discuss them?

It’s the slogan you see on bumper stickers and for years it has been the mantra of the National Rifle Association: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Those seven words are true. But it’s also true that deranged people with military-style weapons can kill lots of people in a matter of minutes, even seconds.

There’s something fundamentally wrong when a lone gunman can assemble an arsenal of 23 guns, 12 of which were high-powered rifles legally modified to function like automatic weapons capable of firing 9 rounds per second, and not have violated a single law or gun regulation until he began shooting, senselessly and horrifically murdering 58 innocent people and injuring more than 500 at an outdoor country music concert in Las Vegas.

Weapons designed to kill as many people in the shortest time possible belong on the battlefield in war, not on the streets of America.

It’s way past time for the United States to have a meaningful dialogue about gun violence and to impose some reasonable and common-sense gun laws that might prevent would-be mass-murderers from slaughtering people, or at least diminish the scale of death, injury and carnage when a lunatic gunman decides to open up on a crowd. Though our country is deeply polarized by partisan politics, surely we are capable of a rational and respectful debate about what we can do to better protect people from being indiscriminately murdered and seriously injured without infringing on the legitimate rights and privileges of every law-abiding American citizen who chooses to own one or more guns. It makes no sense that the most powerful nation in the world has been rendered virtually powerless to take even limited steps to more effectively provide for the safety of its own citizens, law enforcement officers and first responders in public places.

Since colonial days, guns have been for many an integral part of the America culture. Being able to lawfully own firearms for security and self-protection purposes or for hunting or target-shooting is a value deeply embedded in our nation’s fabric. Today, there are approximately 270 million guns in the United States, the highest total for any country in the world. They are owned by 30 percent of the adult population. Like the other 70 percent of American adults, I don’t own a gun and most likely never will. I don’t hunt or target-shoot and probably never will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in or respect the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution nor does it mean I want to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

It’s an undeniable fact that a clear majority of the American public supports sensible gun restrictions such as banning assault-style weapons, stopping people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns, requiring background checks for private sales and at gun shows, creating a government database to track gun sales and banning high-capacity magazines, armor-piercing ammunition and silencers. Reliable studies also show that many gun owners support stricter forms of gun control. A Quinnipiac University poll earlier this year showed 94 percent of voters support background checks for all gun buyers. The same poll determined that 57 percent of voters believe guns are too easy to buy and only 35 percent thought more people carrying guns would make Americans safer.

Trying to pass even modest gun-control measures is a challenge because the debate over gun rights isn’t really about guns, reporters for Time magazine wrote in its Oct. 5 edition. “It’s about what they represent: cherished freedoms, a reverence for independence. It’s about government power vs. individual rights. Even the most incremental move to constrain deadly weaponry seems to many Americans to cut against their rights.”

As former Wisconsin radio talkshow host Charlie Sykes wrote in the New York Times Oct. 7: “The NRA has successfully taken the issue of rational gun regulation out of the policy realm and made it a central feature of the culture wars. The issue is no longer simply about bump stock, or assault weapons, or specific regulations, or public safety; the debate over guns has become a subset of the larger cultural clash that pits us against them.”

Although most gun owners don’t belong to the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby seems to intimidate and own Congress, especially the Republicans. It’s time for all politicians to start caring more about the safety of the public than the prospect of being safely elected or re-elected. It’s time for public officials to stop worrying about the scorecard the NRA keeps on each gun-related vote and start worrying more about the other scorecard, the one that shows how many innocent people are killed each year by murderers using the kind of weapons and ammunition no law-abiding citizen needs and few even want.

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