Is There A Middle Ground On Guns?

This morning, on CNN, Donald Trump told Wolf Blitzer the whole problem with guns is President Obama. President Obama has failed to negotiate, failed to find a middle ground.

For Republicans there is always a simple answer, the same answer: it's Obama's fault.

Driving to work, , listening to  NPR who organizes gun shows across the West, I heard a man who, for the first time in a long time, struck me as a reasonable person who likes guns. He said the basic problem is  people react to highly visible shootings and they  want to make all guns go away; on the other side are people who say, the government can't protect me, so I want to protect myself: Give me guns. "I don't see where there is any middle ground in this discussion," he said.

Actually, I do think there is a middle ground. The problem is, not a single Republican wants to stand on that ground because screaming about the 2nd Amendment "energizes the base" of the right wing group now called the Republican party. 

It doesn't help that President Obama and Democrats approach the debate as if they had the answers, when, in fact, the solutions offered thus far--more criminal background checks, better technology to restrict use of guns to a single owner with a fingerprint ID, waiting periods to purchase guns--would not  prevent determined mass shooters like the San Bernadino, the Sandy Hook, the Aurora movie theater lunatics, from executing their plans. 

There is also the problem of seeing all gun violence as the same--the kid who shoots another kid on a Baltimore street corner for insulting his sneakers is not the same problem as the San Bernadino shooter or as the Planned Parenthood shooter. 

There are gun deaths and there are gun deaths and not all are the same problem.

Just as  there can be  no middle ground on the abortion debate if you draw your line at a fertilized egg as the beginning of human life, there is no  room for discussion once you have already staked out an absolutist position on guns:  You cannot pass a law about guns or you cannot have guns. 

But with respect to approaches meant to reduce specific types of gun deaths, there could be middle ground, if there were Republicans who were willing to step beyond the absolutist boundaries.  

Anyone who has ever read George V. Higgins's wonderful novel "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" will know illegal trafficking in guns has been around for decades and will never die.  But, if you draw your lines more carefully, then you might be able to inhibit some bad outcomes.  
Focusing on bullets has not been given enough attention.

Were Bernie Sanders President, there might be some hope of negotiating some action to reduce high octane shootings: He is one Democrat who  cannot be accused of wanting to take away your guns.

But two things would have to happen:  Every Republican who claims to be defending the Second Amendment  would have to be asked, every time, "Would you please recite that one sentence amendment?"

"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 abridged."

Once you've said that, it will be apparent the Constitution does not guarantee individual ownership of guns, and in fact it wasn't until Heller v District of the Columbia that the current reactionary element of the Supreme Court was able to make individual ownership the law of the land. For two hundred years prior to this Court, the Court had clearly said, "No, you don't have a right to own your own gun. That's a privilege."

Once we agree, the government has the right to restrict your access to guns, has the right, if it desires, to come seize all your guns, we can begin the discussion. 

Everyone at the table, however, should understand, we have to be humble. It is also true no law, no government policy anyone has proposed or dreamed up will stop gun violence in a nation with 300 million guns. Trying to stop gun deaths by eliminating guns would be about as likely to work as trying to reduce auto deaths by outlawing automobiles. 

I know my neighbor who hunts, who has the heads of wild boar, antelopes and deer on the walls of his house is no more likely to shoot down school children than I am. We can begin by saying that. Yes, he has the means of wrecking havoc, but he will not, no more than I would drive my SUV through a school yard filled with children trying to kill them. We all have means of murder and mayhem available to us, but we do not do murder and mayhem, and not because laws prevent us.

Where should this discussion take place? Well, it would be nice if we could have it in the halls of Congress, but until the place is swept clean of Tea Party Republicans, of Ted Cruz, of Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and their ilk, it is not likely to happen.