I hope I live to see the day when the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook has become nothing but a dim memory from a dark and unhappy time, with no parallel in recent events.
But for now that day stands a long way off. In the interim there will be debates about gun restrictions, and possibly better laws. Personally I find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for the debate about legislation. I would rather assist efforts to make Americans feel ashamed to keep guns in the places where they live.
If someone boasts about having driven home one night full of liquor, we are right if we try to shame that person because they were putting their own lives and the lives of others at great risk. If someone breeds dogs specifically to fight and kill, we regard them with contempt for their perversion of good domestic animals and for playing with violence. A person who keeps firearms at home should be considered just as reckless, because they too are putting lives at risk for nothing more than a thrill.
No one can handle a gun safely at all times, not even the best trained expert. (Half of all gun owners have below-average safety skills.) No trained owner can resist always the temptation to let an untrained acquaintance 'try it out'. No gun safe remains locked forever, and not every gun makes it back to the safe after being used. No person's mood sails forever clear of intense despair or rage or carelessness. No one has absolute and constant control over the doings of their family members. With guns there are a million small chances, and it only takes one to cause mutilation or death. This is why the numbers show that when a gun is fired at a person, that person is more likely to be the gun's owner or acquaintance rather than a stranger or intruder.
Facts like these should become common knowledge, and their impact felt viscerally. If we can diminish the number of smokers with a combination of education and shocking ads, we can do the same for gun ownership. The Surgeon General should be spelling out the dangers of gun ownership. We should have ads on tv and social media exposing the foolishness and recklessness of domestic firearms. There should be good movies made which expose the horrors of handgun murders and confound the fantasy of the hero shooter. We should make extensive use of the First Amendment to combat the abuse of the Second.
There are perfectly harmless alternatives to firearms which everyone knows about. If you want meat, you can go bowhunting, you can fish, you can trap, you can even buy it from a store. If you like play shooting, the stores sell a wide range of Nerf guns. If you want to act like you're a soldier, you can go to the woods and shoot paint-pellets at your friends. If you need some high-tech fun you can play laser tag at the mall. If you want to relive the gun culture of frontier America, there are a thousand historical sites to visit, a thousand movies to watch, and a thousand books to read. If you fantasize about shooting bad guys you can play video games. If you want to protect your community using force, you should join the police. If you want to defend your country with large weapons, you should join the armed forces. If you want to protect your family - then you shouldn't keep a gun at home.
Guns are for killing. Homes are for protection from the elements, for mutual support, for raising families, for happiness and rest. The two cannot coexist. There should be no guns in homes. People should chose not to have them, and rather than force them to submit indignantly to a law, it would be far better if they gave up their guns out of a deep sense of embarrassment and shame.
My $0.02.