I live in Texas. Folks here LOVE their guns. Yesterday, a close friend and average position Texas gun owner posted "Gun laws prevent shootings? Tell me more about how criminals follow laws?" Unable to resist, I replied: "Gun laws are meant to make it more difficult for people to get guns, because then FEWER crazy, irresponsible or bad people would be able to get them. Not all, for sure, but SOME improvement is far better than none when you're talking about INNOCENT lives. Don't you think? If you're a responsible gun owner, as all folks who own them should be, then you would seem to be the type of person who would advocate FOR gun control."
His reply: "More gun laws would only one again infringe on the abiding citizen's 2nd amendment rights. They will make it more difficult for those citizens to legally purchase firearms. Every gun I've purchased, especially my handgun and semi auto rifle, I've gone through a background check and was put on hold for at least 24 hours. I served honorably in the military and am a responsible gun owner. Makes no sense I had to wait to buy them. The bad guys are going to get their guns regardless of what laws are put in place."
There are many things in life worth waiting for, especially when innocent lives are involved. Having served the innocent with their own life choices, it seems that a military person might be MOST interested in a little sacrifice.
Military or not, it really is nonsensical to argue that restrictions on something wouldn't produce LESS of that thing, and that that wouldn't be a good thing because it wouldn't get ALL of the problem. This all or nothing excuse people use to avoid something that they don't like is just that, an excuse.
Just LESS of a bad thing is a good thing. If we were interested in BETTER like we ALL should be, the stats say there is a real problem with the way we approach our gun laws (reflected in the opinion of my friend). Numbers. Real people. Dead. More every year than were killed on 911. Innocent victims, and factors more of them than in any other high income country. We are killing ourselves, for "rights" and all that,- never mind the right to LIFE. We should not accept that, even if it takes sacrifice. So you have to wait a day, or a week, or a MONTH even. So what if you can't buy an AK-47,- how much is your "fun" worth? How much is even ONE life worth? Our gun laws are stuck in ID.
A basic ability to communicate is required. People equate argument with fight, but argument does not have to equate fight. A good argument is stimulating, and it is required to get at the guts of anything. Without embracing argument, you cannot have a conversation, because when there are two sides to anything the conversation IS an argument. If you expect that to be a fight, and one side or the other has to win in totality, then it will indeed be a fight and there will be no resolution. Maybe the problem is that gun owners only see things as win/lose? Bang, you're dead? Problem solved, and I didn't have to listen to your stupid arguments on why I shouldn't have the right to just shoot you if I disagree?
For progress on anything, BOTH sides compromise their positions to find the average solution. Average is always what suits the MOST people,- meaning that more people, not the extreme on either end but the significant middle, WIN.
It has to start with a willingness to have the conversation, and a little trust that we CAN still work together in this country for the common GOOD.