***If the discussion of guns is a sensitive subject for you, please skip to the bolded portions of the text as I’ve tried to make that the heart of what I’m trying to offer.***
When the shooting at Sandy Hook, Connecticut happened in December it had an impact on me and caused me to think a lot about my stance and opinion on guns. It also motivated me to write a bit about my feelings and frustrations. Since then I’ve seen a lot of debates in the news, seen the firearms legislation proposed by the President, watched Piers Morgan with wonder, and purposely avoided engaging in Facebook discussions on the subject.
I know that there are extremely passionate arguments on both sides of this issue and I recognize there are many people who have been positively and negatively impacted by guns in general. However, I want to offer a few ideas to help focus the discussion on gun control and bring it back from the brink of high-strung talk show emotions or unintended Facebook arguments.
Debating Guns
As I see it, the two sides of this argument look something like this (extreme generalization coming):
- Limit the public’s access to firearms and that will decrease the likelihood of firearm related deaths.
- Ensure the public’s access to firearms and that will decrease the likelihood of firearm related deaths.
The loved ones I want kept safe.
While these are polar opposites, I want to highlight to everyone who spent the time to read this far that the reason this is such a passionate topic is because I believe there are people on both sides of the debate who are honestly trying to do the best they can to keep people they care about from dying. Real emotions are often involved in these discussions with some people having either been lost to gun violence or protected by it. This makes it very hard for both sides of the argument to clearly see the collective unity that exists during the disagreement, that most people are concerned about the same thing – keeping each other as safe as possible. I think this point is so overlooked in the passion of the polar opposites that it is keeping any real progress from occurring.
If more of these conversations started by focusing on the collective goal of keeping everyone safe, I think that will go a long way to moderate the unhelpful or unproductive conversations that seem to be consuming the topic. While opinions may disagree on the method, most seem to agree that the purpose is to keep the ones we love as safe as possible. And that uniting point seems to be lost during the emotion of the discussion. I encourage you to keep that at the center of any discussion you have on guns in order to generate productive conversation instead of unhelpful arguments.
When people start with what they do agree on, it sets the tone for a rational start. You’ve done a great job with this here in that both who own guns and those who don’t agree on – we all want our loved ones safe. Unfortunately, those who scream the loudest get the most attention on tv. As a kid, I had a BB gun, pellet gun then as a teen used a .22 and a shotgun. Other family members had higher caliber guns. In the Marines, I became an expert with the M16 for almost all my 5 years. I lost it during a very windy day my last year. Currently I don’t own any guns by choice. Would it change if I had children? I’n not sure, problably not. But that would not mean I’m antiguns. I support the 2nd amendment, it’s just that like everything else in life, people change and or decide something is not for them anylonger. I still appreciate good marksmanship! I hope I’m not digressing here. Perhaps the next step is to decide what methods is to be used to decide how to achieve the goal of keeping our loved ones safety while honoring and knowing the 2nd amendment cannot be infringed upon. I believe in science and scientific methods, so I would propose, at least for my part, in using scientific data collection that is subject to peer review. If there is another method, I would love to listen and would be open to discussing it like civilized neighbors uniting for a common cause unlike news stations who thrive on screaming and name calling. Peace.
Joe, every comment from you makes me smile bigger and bigger. Thanks bud 🙂