Common Ground on Guns

By , December 19, 2012 9:42 am

Frank Miniter, a gun owner and the author of “The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood,” writes today on National Review Online to offer some good advice to both sides of the gun debate:

. . . So let’s step forward . . . onto common ground. Consider what President Barack Obama said in Newtown: “In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens — from law enforcement, to mental-health professionals, to parents and educators — in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have?”

What about engaging gun owners? The National Rifle Association (NRA) estimates there are 100 million gun owners in America. An October 2011 Gallup poll found that 47 percent of American adults keep at least one gun in their home. Americans own more than 300 million firearms. In both recent shootings — in the Oregon mall and the Connecticut school — the killers used stolen guns. How about working with gun owners to make sure guns are stored safely? How about allowing those with concealed-carry permits to defend fellow citizens? Aren’t these choices? After all, currently more than 8 million Americans have concealed-carry permits.

When gun-control proponents feverishly demand that law-abiding Americans give up their right to self-defense as the price for a disturbed person’s heinous act, then free, law-abiding gun owners necessarily find themselves on defense, as they’d rather not be left defenseless. There is a better way.

As gun-control advocacy groups and politicians focus solely on gun control, the NRA, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and others have been left with the task of teaching firearm safety. While Hollywood and the video-game industry sell gun violence, somehow those preaching gun safety and self-defense have become the bad guys. This demagoguery is counterproductive. . . .

Miniter goes on to discuss “five things gun-control advocates and gun-rights groups should be able to agree on to help prevent a future Columbine or Sandy Hook.” You can read them at the link. They all sound reasonable and doable to me. And they just might actually work. As he says, in the first of his five points:

When an epidemic of drunk driving bloodied our highways, we didn’t demonize car owners and pass bans on automobiles. We worked with the American people, stiffened penalties, and had national campaigns explaining the problem. We talked about designated drivers and hotlines for alcoholics. We treated the American people as adults. We showed a good, moral path to follow.

We need to work with gun owners in the same open, honest way.

Just guessing here, but if you treat gun owners like an adults instead of demonizing them as a brain-dead gun nuts (cue the Piers Morgan video clip), they might consider working with you towards solving this problem.

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