I’ve been trying for a while to decide what I think about the recent gun control debate. I want badly to have an intelligible and reasonable view on gun control.

I have friends that support any and all gun control legislation and drape the moniker “gun nut” liberally over anyone that owns a gun. And I have friends that think the mere mention of gun control is tantamount to digging up each and everyone of the founding fathers and farting in their corpse mouths.

Chances are, they are both wrong.

Full disclosure: I didn’t grow up around guns. I’ve never fired any weapon more substantial than a BB gun. I don’t own nor have I contemplated owning a gun.

I don’t oppose their existence, and I don’t have a problem with reasonable people owning them. In fact, I believe that people have a right to own a gun or guns if they choose for protection, hunting, target practice, rodent suppression or any other damned thing they want to do with them, so long as they don’t get around to pointing them at those of us that choose not to partake. I don’t believe that that right is god-given, a birthright or anything as fancy as that. A gun is a commodity, and this is a free-market economy.  And, for the most part, a gun is only as dangerous as the meat sack attached to it.

And therein lies the problem. A lot of guns end up attached to the wrong meat sacks: felonious meat sacks, crazy meat sacks, dimwitted, gullible and wrong-headed meat sacks. So how do we keep that from happening?

People that are against guns will typically say that we need more gun control laws in place. Many of those people could not tell you what gun control laws are currently in place. They just know that we need more. Maybe we do need more laws or better laws or maybe we need more consistent enforcement of existing laws.

For example, there is a “gun show loophole” that seems confounding to me. I will say that I have heard too many statistics bandied about regarding how big this loophole actually is to believe any of them specifically. That being said, if we require background check for any gun purchase, why not every gun purchase? If you allow for an opportunity for the wrong people to acquire guns, seems reasonable to assume that they would utilize that method. Why make it easier for them?

Gun control laws are not the answer. They might be part of the answer, but laws, for the most part, are helpful in prosecuting criminals after the fact. As a general rule, people with bad intentions are less inclined to be hindered by things like rules, laws and regulations.

Gun advocates are fond of using an ultimately flawed comparison between cars and guns. It goes something like this: Cars are responsible for more deaths each year than guns, but no one is trying to take your car away. That’s true, but the automobile industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries on the planet. Many of these laws include minimum safety standards required to put the car on the open market (seat belts, airbags, etc.). Why not focus our attention on making guns safer or better yet useless in the hands of the wrong person?

We are a nation virtually awash in technology and gadgets of every kind. Why not put that to use for a purpose more advanced than managing a virtual farm or hurling ill-tempered fowls at their porcine rivals? For example, there is technology that exists today that can prevent anyone other than the registered owner (the guy that passed the background check)  from firing the gun. In the wrong hands, it basically renders the gun as little more than a blunt object. I don’t think it is crazy to suggest it is a lot more difficult to pistol whip 26 people to death before the authorities arrive than it is to gun them down. Why don’t we work toward making this technology mandatory for all newly manufactured weapons?

Why stop there? Armed police officers in schools? Yes, please. Expanded data in the database used for background checks? Sure! More gun safety programs? Yup. Prosecuting felons for attempting to buy a gun? Of course. Improved mental healthcare in this country? Hell yes.

A little bit of common sense all around would go a long way.

Oh, and one last thing…

Doomsday Preppers: You are terrifying. Your bunkers and your body armor and your stockpile of food and what can only be classified as an arsenal are like buying stock in the apocalypse. You are so heavily invested in an apocalyptic scenario that you are hastening its arrival. There is an old saying that says, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” I can only think that one does not build an arsenal without planning to use it. Be skeptical of your government. No problem. Keep them honest. Call them on their shit. But some of you appear ready to turn on your mailman (clearly a government agent meaning to do harm to you and yours).

Chill the fuck out.