I know, I know. I need to stop. I could do this every day for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t change anything. Melodramatic op-eds seem to be the way to go; well-reasoned argumentation is for suckers.

In the Las Vegas Review-Journal (the Sports section, no less!), one C. Douglas Nielsen makes sure he’s no sucker! He starts out by voicing a quasi-legitimate concern:

If you have felt a little weighted down and sluggish the past few days, you are not alone — not if you legally own a firearm, anyway. Because along with the weighty responsibility that comes with being a gun owner is the even heavier matter of the blame you and I now carry for the terrible events that unfolded Saturday in Tucson, Ariz.

Not that you, I or the other 80 million American gun owners had anything to do with the vicious attack on Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as she met with her constituents outside of a busy supermarket. … But in today’s world, the fact that 79,999,999 other gun owners had nothing to do with the Tucson shooting doesn’t seem to matter, not in a day when some people are quick to place blame on anyone or anything but the perpetrator of the crime.

I get where you’re going with this, Doug. Public discourse has been pretty quick to jump to “guns are bad” because that’s generally what happens when massacres happen (at least, when they happen in American Safeways; we’re less concerned when they happen in Juarez, even if the guns came from America). That’s not cool; you’re absolutely right that millions of Americans manage to own guns without killing anybody. Somehow. Magically. I’m with you on this one, Doug, though I’d point out that blame seems to have been placed pretty squarely on Mr. Loughner, and if there’s additional blame being passed around, it may just be an effort to make sure this can’t happen again.

However, I don’t think anybody’s gone to their gun-owning next door neighbor and accused them of murdering a 9-year-old. There’s blame, and then there’s collective responsibility. Those gun owners who’ve fought for unrestricted access to guns and accessories bear some responsibility for massacres, because their words and their money has enabled lobbyists to keep gun control down to the bare minimum.

So anyway:

In essence, all American gun owners are being lined up for a spanking because someone else used a firearm to do something terribly wrong. While I think we need to discuss ways of identifying the ticking time bombs among us, those discussions need to be carried out in an environment that is not heated by rhetoric and driven by freedom-quashing agendas. What we don’t need is some kind of secret police force patrolling the streets for people who someday possibly might do something wrong.

Oh. Well, yes, that is clearly what a debate about reasonable restrictions on guns would come down to. A secret police force patrolling the streets for people who someday possibly might do something wrong. Yes. Clearly. You are contributing valuable ideas to this debate, Doug. I’m gonna go join the NRA to make sure no secret police get into my airtight fortress RIGHT THE HELL NOW.

I don’t even want to touch his comment about “freedom-quashing agendas.” He takes the freedom-to approach, and I take the freedom-from approach, and we can dance until our feet are numb and we’ll still get nowhere.

Honestly. I just… I don’t know. Maybe this is as good as this discourse gets? Maybe hyperbole and fear-mongering is the best way to go? Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.

Kudos to Ruth Marcus over at the Washington Post for her spot-on op-ed this morning. This is a journalist who gets it and who doesn’t go over the top with fantastical notions of mental health practitioners and military eligibility. She gets to the heart of this event and its policy implications, calls for a perfectly reasonable cap on magazine capacity, and doesn’t get out of breath arguing the dangers of guns.

She also quite succinctly gets at the political climate around gun control:

The modern politics of gun control do not favor those who back restrictions. Success, such as it is, consists of defending existing limits, not imposing new ones. Democrats were scared off from the issue after passing the assault-weapons ban and then losing control of Congress in 1994. Candidate Obama vowed to reinstate the assault weapons ban; President Obama, after a single year in office, had signed into law more repeals of federal gun-control policies than did President George W. Bush during his two full terms, according to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

As a matter of political self-preservation, I would not advise Democrats to mount a full-scale push for new gun-control measures.

At least political hay is being made (and oh, Republicans, don’t you even dare try to claim that you don’t capitalize on tragedy to pass laws) now. Hopefully Lautenberg and McCarthy make some headway on banning high-capacity magazines. It’s a good, small step that shouldn’t be too scary to pass.

Too bad the Gun Owners of America don’t see it like that:

“There is no okay number with Carolyn McCarthy and her allies in the Congress,” Velleco said. “They will only start with the number. . . . If the government can ban magazines with 10 or more rounds, it can ban a magazine that holds five or more rounds. There is no way to stop the arbitrariness of that sort of legislating.”

Here’s a thought: let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. I bet Mr. Velleco will find that support, both Congressional and public, for decreasing magazine capacity starts to trail off pretty quickly after we get down to 10.

He continues:

“Who knows how many rounds a law-abiding person might need to protect themselves?”

Gosh. I bet somebody’s done some unbiased studies on the average number of rounds your typical citizen gets off in self-defense. This isn’t theology here, buddy. Just shrugging your shoulders and going “who knows?” is unacceptable - go find some data before implying that 30+ rounds is necessary to defend against an attack. Also, clarify what you think people are protecting themselves from. The next Jared Loughner? A pack of wild dogs? How will 30+ rounds help us there? Marcus again:

So a gun-carrying citizen is at the shooting, tries to stop Loughner and 10 rounds isn’t enough? A high-capacity magazine in the hands of such a bystander would be more likely to inflict more damage on other innocent observers than to take down the shooter.

Bingo. If you can’t hit him with one of the first 10, should you really be the guy holding 30 rounds in a crowd?

______________________

As a sidenote, I’d also like to call out the Washington Post’s web editors for this little graphic that I found on the home page this morning. “Gun owners, beware”? Beware what, exactly? Beware, they’re coming to take away your ability to fire 10+ rounds without reloading? Harden the fuck up and see yesterday’s remarks about inflammatory rhetoric.

It’s sweet that they didn’t feel the irony of juxtaposing that headline with “Culture of paranoia” was too much for a Tuesday.

Domestic gun politics are not my favorite subject. There’s a lot of passionate, willful ignorance on both sides of the issue, and a lot of it seems to stem from a basic disagreement about whether there’s any legitimate use for a gun outside law enforcement or the military. I happen to believe there is, but I spent years in the other camp as well. Generally I just avoid the topic.

That said, Jared Loughner’s actions have produced a flurry of histrionic rants and strident op-eds about the evils of guns and how criminally insane people can just walk in and buy assault weapons and oh god what is this world coming to? From Gawker:

… no one’s even bothering to put up a heartfelt argument about whether we should consider enacting barriers to the purchase of semi-automatic weapons by plainly insane people… A consensus has emerged that preserving access to firearms for the public at large is worth the occasional mass killing because the alternative—registering firearms, requiring competency evaluations before selling them—is too onerous.

To which I say: deep breath, team. Let’s all go get our terminology straight and regroup here in a few minutes. Let’s stop using the term semi-automatic as a way to whip people into a frenzy. In fact, let’s tone down the inflammatory rhetoric in general.

Gawker, further:

Ask yourself which measure, had it been in place in the three years prior to the killings, would have been more likely to prevent them: A pledge from Sarah Palin to refrain from violent rhetoric, or a requirement in Arizona that all gun sales be accompanied by a note from a mental health professional certifying competence. Thousands have been demanding the former for the past two days; I haven’t heard anyone propose the latter.

There’s a reason you haven’t heard anyone propose the latter – it’s a terrible idea. Getting a note from a mental health professional certifying “competence” (what’s that?) isn’t like getting a note from your doctor that you’re up to date on your shots. Are you really suggesting that mental health professionals should declare sanity before gun purchases go through? Do you know how difficult it is to get an appointment with a mental health professional? Do you know how expensive and time-consuming it is? Just some possible externalities of a policy like this, none of which are a real stretch of the imagination:

• Overburdened “mental health professionals” (again, can we define some terms?) are suddenly expected to evaluate whether somebody is a danger to society and/or to themselves, based on… what standards? How many evaluations? Certainly nobody would dare lie to a mental health professional. Is there an appeal process? What if Dr. X says I seem depressed today and for my own safety shouldn’t be allowed to purchase a gun? What if Dr. X hates guns and denies me out of hand? Can I get a second opinion?
• Health insurance plans would decrease mental health coverage because there would be a sudden spike in demand. Mental health is already misunderstood, poorly treated, and insufficiently covered – yes, let’s break that system a little more. That’ll have the desired results.
• The working class is unfairly penalized, because they will find it more difficult to take time off during normal working hours to go to a mental health professional. But I’m sure you normally champion the working class, right? Just not when they want things you don’t think they should have, like guns.

Clearly you didn’t think this through. You can’t possibly believe this is a good idea; you’re just inflaming the left. You represent the standard entrenchment pattern for every gun control debate, and you are why that debate is always over before it starts. Thanks for playing.

Let’s go find somebody with authority and a track record of general reasonableness. Let’s see what the New York Times has to say:

Mr. Loughner was rejected by the military for failing a drug test, and had five run-ins with the Pima Community College police before being suspended for disruptive activity. Why can’t Congress require a background check — without loopholes for gun shows or private sales — that would detect this sort of history? If the military didn’t want someone like Mr. Loughner to be given a firearm, neither should the public at large.

New York Times, is that really you? Military eligibility as a standard by which to allow or disallow gun ownership? What are you doing on this crazytrain?

Military eligibility has nothing to do with your fitness to own and operate a gun in a safe and legal way, and it has nothing to do with how sane or rational an actor you are. Until, oh, a few weeks ago, the military didn’t want to give gay people guns either. Does that mean the Pink Pistols should pack it up? And hey, #fulldisclosure: I’m ineligible to join the military cause I have asthma. Should I not be allowed to own guns in case I… have an asthmatic attack?

Or are we hating on people who fail drug tests now? This is equally pernicious, because Loughner’s drug test (note: I said test, not ongoing drug use) has nothing to do with his decision to go on a rampage, but ohmygod DRUGS ARE BAD GUNS ARE BAD DO YOU NOT SEE THE CONNECTION?!?! BAN EVERYTHING!!!! Guns should never be under the influence of mind-altering substances, but claiming drug use should automatically disqualify you from gun ownership is both impractical and far too general to warrant inclusion in a NYT op-ed. What drugs? Is there a threshold for how much drug use is too much? How will a seller know? Are we proposing to create a database of known drug users? Where do we draw the line on privacy?

The debate over gun control and gun rights seems to remain the same, no matter what happens. Both sides have to remain within their camp, and any efforts to reach across that divide are immediately crushed. We can’t have a productive debate if nobody can point out absurdity on their own side. On Twitter, CJ Chivers pointed me to the case of Jim Zumbo, who became a pariah in the firearms community in 2007 for speaking out against AR-15s and AK-47s being used as hunting rifles. Assault rifles. For hunting. No.

Bringing this back to Loughner: high-capacity magazines are also absurd. I can’t think of a legitimate civilian need for a high-cap magazine, just as I can’t think of a legitimate civilian need for a fully-automatic weapon of any kind. What the hell could you possibly do with 33 rounds that you couldn’t do with 10 or 15, besides massacre people? At the shooting range, I generally use a 15-round magazine, which is considered high-cap in some states, because I don’t want to reload every five minutes. If that were illegal, I’d sigh, get a 10-round magazine, and move on with my life. In the argument between, “I should be allowed to own any gun and any accessories I want” and “Public availability of some weapons/accessories poses a substantial risk to society,” I come down firmly on the side of the collective good. That’s what civilization is about.

So let’s be civilized. Let’s have a gun control debate that is reasonable and practical, and let’s write accurately and honestly about guns. Ban high-capacity magazines, but don’t even propose introducing mental health professionals into the equation. That doesn’t further the debate; that shuts it down.

More than anything, I think this tragedy points to the need for a re-evaluation of the mental health system. We should be asking how Jared Loughner slipped through the cracks of society to end up in that Safeway parking lot, and finding ways to get people like him the help they need, not proposing thoroughly impractical solutions to questions of gun control.