We should get beyond emotion on gun debate

I’m a gun owner.

In our household, we have rifles, shotguns and a Smith & Wesson 4-inch bull barrel .38 Special I’ve owned since 1975. They’ve been used for hunting, target shooting and “plinking.” All in all, it’s probably not much different than most households in the Twin Lakes Area; some no doubt have many more, some might have one, and others don’t have any firearms.

I grew up around firearms, and still have a .22 gallery rifle my grandfather on Mom’s side of the family owned and I still have the .410 single-shot shotgun my Dad bought me when I became old enough to have a gun of my own. I’ve hunted and I’ve shot guns for fun.

My college roommate in Texas was and still is a firearms collector — he even has a Gatling gun — who has provided firearms for a few movie productions. During our college days, we shot some of his guns, including a Thompson .45 semi-automatic machine gun that was a hoot to shoot. That helps me understand the allure of wanting to shoot semi-automatic firearms for fun, or the civilian versions of military firearms. I also appreciate competitive shooting sports, such as the Single-Action Shooting Society’s Old West shooting events.

I haven’t hunted much the last couple of years, and lately I haven’t done a lot of shooting, but I still think both are excellent pastimes, and I plan on keeping the firearms I have. I respect the right of people to own firearms, and agree it is an important right we have as Americans. I also respect the rights of people who don’t care for firearms, whether they fear them or just don’t like them and want nothing to do with guns.

That said, I also think we, as a society, must reach some agreement on how we can try to prevent tragedies such as Newtown, Conn., or Aurora, Colo. We need to get beyond the usual knee-jerk reactions of calling for gun bans and countering them with indignant outrage against any who dares challenge the Second Amendment. We need to calm the emotions of both sides and take a hard, practical and logical look at the issue.

Sound arguments can be made for both sides, but they get obscured by emotions, whether it’s a Hollywood celebrity decrying the existence of firearms or talk-show host Alex Jones screaming at CNN’s Piers Morgan that it will be 1776 again if someone tries to take his guns.

Generally, I think celebrities are just hopping aboard whatever bandwagon is passing by at the moment, and that many of the emotional arguments by firearms opponents lack sound reasoning, plus they have a decided lack of knowledge or experience when it comes to guns. Some of the calls for gun bans have little to do with the question of how to prevent future incidents such as Newtown. Plus, a gun ban would be the same as Prohibition, and we’ve seen what that got us.

On the other hand, people like Jones do far more harm than good for firearms proponents with overly dramatic responses and emotional arguments with incongruous analogies. Yes, cars kill more people than guns so why isn’t there an outcry to ban cars is one of the more outrageous analogies. There likely are more controls and regulations already in place for cars than guns, plus the majority of vehicle deaths are accidental, not deliberate. (And yes, there are plenty of accidental shootings, too, but generally most are intentional.)

I’ve read blogs by two writers in different fields who address the gun issue from conservative and liberal views, yet both offer reasonable arguments which share some common points. One is by science-fiction novelist Larry Correia (http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control), and the other is by nonfiction writer Sam Harris (http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun). I think both are worth the time to read.

Answers lie between the extremes, as they so often do. We need to put aside the emotions and hysterical yammering of both sides and deal with the matter in a logical and pragmatic fashion because there are so many factors involved. Obviously, in the cases of Newton and Aurora, as well as in many similar incidents, more is involved than firearms and access to them. For example, there are mental health issues to address and what society can do to treat and, better yet, identify individuals who are likely to go down the same bloodied path.

I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. I know we can’t stop people from killing people and haven’t since Cain slew Abel. And I know if someone is intent on committing murder, they will find a way, whether it’s with a gun, or a knife, or a rock, or whatever is handy. But, I also know there has to be a way we can try to prevent the massacre of innocents, and society needs to look for a way the majority of us can agree on.