I do think there are legitimate reasons to want to own guns but I don’t think defending yourself from the black helicopters is one of them. There’s a sort of romantic appeal to the idea but I can’t see where that’s anything but John Wayne-style adolescent fantasy.

The world is a scary place.

How do anti-gun people deal with fear?

On another note, I wonder if a proposed time-frame might be useful in discussing firearm disarmament in the U.S. As passionate as some of us are, I believe that it may take a good ten to twenty years of gradual change to seriously bring down the number of guns. 

Nuclear disarmament does not happen over night.

I understand the fear some citizens have toward their fellow citizens. I understand the fear that we have toward trespassers in the night. The fear and distrust we have of the government. 

Is it acceptable to be afraid?

From what I understand about non-violent conflict resolution, it is important to find common ground. And it is important to deeply listen to each other.

Isn’t this a time to acknowledge our shared humanity? Isn’t this an opportunity to withhold judgement long enough to risk deep understanding?

I get a sense in all of these discussions that pro-gunners just so desperately want to be heard and understood.

I am a peaceful person, but I admit I am afraid a lot of the time. I wish I didn’t agree with certain pro-gun positions, but sometimes I do. I would like for there to be no gun violence. But we have so many guns and so many criminals and so many broken systems. If there was a ten percent chance of a deranged killer coming to my door, I would be more inclined to own a gun. If there were a ten percent chance of a killer arriving at my child’s school, I would be inclined to want to have an armed guard at the school.

That is fear working in me. How do I deal with the fear?

Perhaps armed guards are a part of a solution. Maybe in ten or twenty years we will have been unable to change our culture, we will have significantly reduced the numbers of criminals and the deranged who have guns/access to guns. 

Perhaps the police will have fewer guns. Perhaps the government will be more transparent, perhaps we will more and better political choices at election time. Perhaps then the law abiding will be more willing to slow down the rate at which we buy guns.

Is this possible? What would the deep changes in our culture look like that would free people of the fear?

Yes, like the NRA using this tragedy to promote gun sales.

Please tell me what this sentence is, if not a complaint about the NRA being mistreated.

The class could have projects and sing songs… ‘this is my rifle, this is my gun, one is for fighting, one is for fun…

Has to beat Kum-Bai-Fucking-Ya every time surely?

If this is the case, would you not agree that it’s time to re-asses/scrap the amendment altogether?

I don’t know how to express the depth of my contempt for these people without resorting to truly vile obscenity.  I despise them far more than the shooter himself, who had the excuse of psychosis. They are boring, vulgar, mercantile tools who pay their mortgages specifically by ignoring the difference between bean count and body count. They have nothing to say on this matter; they have opted out of the social contract.

The more I read about this story, the less I understand why this issue is even being debated!

Also, given that a certain percent of those accidental shootings were due to police officers, then apparently no one can be trusted with guns.

An expiration date would simply add bureaucracy and expense where none is required.  Violations of certification are currently addressed by the failure to be able to subsequently pass the background check.  I would be in favor of making sure the background checks are accurate and changes to the eligibility status of an individual actually get followed up on.

I know other responsible gun owners who think periodic renewal is actually a good idea, and I tend to agree with them.  My main motivation here is that — just to riff on a currently favored argument from the gun advocate side — mentally ill people aren’t born with stamps on their foreheads marking them as such.  It’s very common for the symptoms of mental illness not to manifest until well into adulthood by which time someone may have already acquired a firearm and a license.  I think renewals make sense because of the logistic impossibility of doing the eligibility status followups that you mention.  I just can’t imagine an oversight process capable of handling that complex of a problem; expiration and renewal forces individual gun owners to take the responsibility to demonstrate that they’re capable.

Further, I do not trust the anti-gun folks to come up with any definition of “continued demonstrations that you are competent to responsibly handle a firearm” that doesn’t put the bar impossibly high.  I won’t dismiss the idea out of hand but I think we’ll be arguing over language for a decade.

I don’t think the definition should be made by “anti-gun folks”, I think it should be reached through compromise from reasonable conversations like this one.  You’re probably right that it wouldn’t be easy but given the fact that firearm safety experts should have the most input and most of those are responsible gun owners I think there’s grounds to believe in a reasonable compromise, here.  I think educating “anti-gun folks” who simply don’t know much about guns would have to be a big part of all of this.  (For my part, I’ve been considering taking a class and renting a gun at a range.) 

Fair points on the “gun show loophole”.  I happily concede that the real problem is unlicensed and unaccountable sellers.  Maybe the lack of a federal standard on this issue could be addressed as a part of making state gun laws more uniform (although I would rather see states voluntarily do so that see the federal government mandate such a thing, maybe cooperation between state and federal is possible).

As an aside, what reasons did you assume I had?

Basically, something like this:

f you’re curious, I shoot because it’s what I did with my father who died when I was young and I feel closer to his memory every time I shoot one of his guns.  I shoot because it’s a mind-clearing exercise in a crazy-making world; they don’t call it “Republican yoga” without a reason.  I shoot because my youthful dreams of Olympic glory have never died.  I’ve relegated them to the file in my head where I also hold the dream of banging Princess Di (Hey, it coulda happened!  She was single for a while!), iow the things I’ll never achieve but still think fondly of.  I own guns because they are marvelous historical artifacts. 
There’s more, but I hope you get the picture.

I think those are good and honest reasons for being a gun owner and I really respect you putting them out there.

Thanks for helping me believe we’re not completely fucked in terms of talking across political divides.  I really do respect your position, especially now that it’s been spelled out a little more clearly.