Guns don't kill people, being uncompromising kills people.

Saw a post on facebook today from a friend of mine who is a gun owner and who supports gun rights. It was a take on the old "guns don't kill people, people kill people" adage that cleverly brought blame against forks for making people fat and blames pencils for misspelling words. It was pretty funny and effective. You see it really got me thinking about a few things.

First off I am not a proponent of gun control. The 2nd amendment of the US Constitution states;

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

This has been interpreted to mean a few different things, (does the right to bear arms only apply to the need to defend the country? does the "shall not be infringed" part mean I can have any type of arms anywhere?) but it seems safe to assume that it is perfectly legal to own a gun in the US of A. That is of course where it stops being safe to assume anything.

Gun rights groups take a hard stance on gun ownership and read the 2nd amendment to mean that gun ownership is a right that should exist without restriction. Well they kind of take that stance. People like myself who engage in a lot of political discussions tend to wind up talking about the same issues over and over again with different individuals and so we build up an arsenal (pun intended) of facts and arguments that we can use whenever the need arises. On the gun control issue I just like to keep the debate centered on facts and so when someone tells me that owning a gun makes you safer I like to bring up studies showing that owning a gun actually increases your chnces of getting shot . Recently I brought this up in a discussion and my friend on the other side questioned me to see if this increased chance of getting shot involved those people who illegally own guns. This question struck me as strange. You see if you don't support gun control laws in any form or fashion how is it that you could think a gun could be owned illegally? Even staunch gun rights activists seem to, at least in the back of their minds, support some form of gun control. This is where the debate breaks down. Fearing the dangers of a slippery slope, gun rights activists feel the need to publicly claim that no substantive limits should be placed on gun ownership while at the same time knowing that there have to be at least a few common sense rules concerning the issue. They believe that if you give the gun control supporters and inch they will take a mile, and they do have a point. There are a few individuals who would like to make all firearms illegal, but to be honest their numbers are very small. We like our guns in this country and very few people want to get rid of them all together. So can we find some balance in this issue?

Lets look at limits we put on other legal activities for examples. I think we can draw a lot of parallels between driving a car and owning a gun. Driving a car is perfectly legal, but you have to be at least 16 years old, you have to pass a test showing that you can safely operate a car, you have to carry insurance, in many states you have to show that the car you are driving meets minimum safety requirements, there are greater requirements you have to meet to drive vehicles of a certain size, and if you break specific laws your driver's license can be taken away. Why can't we apply similar rules to gun ownership?

Before you could buy a gun you would have to simply show that you meet the minimum age requirement, pass a criminal records check, show that you understand how to safely operate the firearm, prove that you have insurance to cover any accidental injuries caused by your gun or guns, and acknowledge that breaking certain laws will result in your gun ownership rights being taken away. Groups like the NRA are big advocates for training people how to correctly fire and maintain their guns, this would simply mandate what groups of this sort have recommended for years. It would allow for easier, safer, and freer gun ownership while helping to protect us from those who shouldn't own a gun in the first place. One license would allow you to purchase any weapon within a certain class of guns and if you wanted to buy something in a different class you would simply go in and show that you meet the training requirements and have that class added to your license. Simple, safe, and it doesn't step on anyone's toes.

But some in the gun rights world will tell you that even common sense regulations of this type are too extreme. They will borrow from their arsenal of facts and arguments and remind you that "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Well they are right, but I would also want to remind them that cars don't kill people, people kill people and yet we still have regulations concerning owning and driving a car to help protect all of us. If they want to continue with their line of reasoning then they should carry it out to its logical conclusion, nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people. So do they support letting their neighbor buy a nuclear warhead from Pakistan and setting up a missile silo in their back yard? Why not? Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people do.