Is there no middle ground with guns?

[TaraJo]

I'm not chiming in on the gun debate too much simply because I don't have a whole lot of strong opinions on guns. Plus, I think my beliefs would fall somewhere into a middle ground: I don't think guns should be taken away from people, but I think reasonable restrictions should be placed on them. Simply put, I think there's a lot of gray area between complete disarment of the popultion and a anarchistic, wild west gun free-for-all.

And that's what gets me in hot water with a lot of the pro-gun crowd. If ever there's an attempt to regulate weapons, as suggested in the first amendment, every survivalist in the nation starts screaming. I'm not talking about the assault weapons/military rifles ban; I'm talking about other, simplier regulations.

I remember, it wasn't that long ago we had tigger locks put on guns. It was a long fight to get that law added. Know what? The NRA fought that regulation tooth and nail every step of the way. This wasn't about taking anyone's guns away, it was about making them safer. I also remember when the Brady bill was originally being talked about. The NRA was up in arms, complaining about the 7 day waiting period. Nobody was taking any guns away; the worst that was happening was people had to wait a little longer to get their gun.

And now? Now the biggest issue that seems to fall into that category would have to be mandatory background checks at gun shows. I mean, this can't be too difficult; if I get pulled over by the police, they get my license and they know everything about my history within a matter of minutes, so why would it be more difficult for a gun dealer to pull up someone's record via their gun license? And, yet, when we try to suggest these things, I keep hearing how we're trying to disarm people or take their guns away.

I heard talks like this come up when we were talking about registering guns in the US and I don't think that ever passed because of it. It's a shame, too, because it would have been a tremendous help for law enforcement. I mean, can you imagine how helpful it would be for the police to know where a gun originated from just by checking a simple serial number? It could help gun owners get their gun back if it pops up again and it would help the police track criminals and/or the gun dealers who are illegally selling guns to criminals.

So, really, why can't we have a mature talk about guns or talk about reasonable regulations on guns without having so many people straw-man the argument and grind talks to a halt?