Hands up: It is the quick-draw of the wallet, not the guns, at issue

As responsible gun owners we are taught to place safety above all else when storing, handling or discharging our weapons.

Instructors at gun ranges and in concealed carry classes across the country make it a point to emphasize safety with cautionary directions such as "keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you are ready to fire," and "don't point your loaded weapon at anything you aren't prepared to put a bullet through."

After every mass shooting in this country, at least two things happen without fail: No. 1, the endless debate over gun control rekindles with fiery takes both for and against. And No. 2, the number of guns purchased and concealed carry permits applied for skyrocket.

To even engage in the debate over gun control is to walk a tightrope without a net. But as we have said in previous editorials, to simply ignore an issue is to enable it to continue unchecked.

Now, we don't purport to have "the answer" here -- no one answer can solve something as perverse as mass shootings. These are the acts of sick individuals for whom no amount of legislation or training will serve as a stopgap for their committing violent acts.

We support the Second Amendment and the responsible gun owner. That is an absolute, and we do not waver from it.

The only sensible aspect of the gun debate to weigh in on, though, seems to be the level of money spent by the gun industry and the National Rifle Association on political campaigns and in support of or against legislation that either protects gun rights or threatens them, respectively.

We are not saying, per se, that the gun makers or the NRA are outright seeking to corrupt anyone. That is, only to say that by everyone throwing money into the pool to push this agenda or that one, to pass this bill or prevent the other from passing, the avalanche of money coming in only begets a certain amount of inescapable corruption.

We see it in college sports, i.e. the current clothing brand scandal being investigated by the FBI and the NCAA. We see it in the pharmaceutical industry, i.e. the opioid epidemic where the overprescription of opioids is at least hypothesized to be a contributing factor to the vast number of overdoses plaguing communities across the country. And we see it in the gun industry with things like the bump stock, or suppressers, also known as silencers.

Now, before you wad up your edition of the News-Argus and skyhook it toward the wastebasket (odds are you'll miss and have to go get it, anyway) consider this, would you want a semi-automatic rifle manipulated to be able to fire as an automatic and with an attachment on the end of it to muffle the sound, potentially making it more difficult to locate the shooter's position, trained and ready to fire on our law enforcement officers?

Neither do we. Nor do we want that weapon aimed at crowds of people at a concert, nor at our kids in schools or at our military recruiters' offices or at our troops on base or at our students on our college campuses.

We don't want anyone coming for our guns, or for yours. But if we entrust our elected officials with finding the responsible solutions to problems too big for us as a cluster of highly opinionated citizens to parse out for ourselves, do we really want them bogged down with having to consider whether or not the position they take is going to cost them the campaign contributions and other financial support they will be dependent on to run for re-election?

If not, how can we expect any politician, Republican or Democrat, to the job they have been elected to do?

Keeping guns out of the hands of the criminally insane and the common criminal, while efforting to keep them in the hands of the responsible and the law abiding citizen, is a daunting task. But it is one we fully support.

The question we should all be asking ourselves is, when in history has throwing millions of dollars at any problem ever been a smart, conservative or lasting solution?

Published in Editorials on October 8, 2017 9:59 PM