I HAVE NEVER owned a gun. I haven't fired a gun since I was a boy. Having a gun in my home would terrify me.
I dislike guns, not just because of what they do to the people who get shot, but because of what they can do to the people who shoot them. At the same time, I have friends who own guns, and I can understand what motivates people to buy them. So, my views about guns and my emotions about people who own them are complicated.
I've listened to my share of Second Amendment debates and, barring a new and insightful interpretation, I think the gun control folks have the better argument. I can offer the predictable reason why I am for gun control and a ban on handguns: Reducing the number of guns in circulation will reduce the number of murders by gunfire.
Because such solutions haven't prevailed in the United States, Chicago and New Orleans have filed lawsuits against gun makers to recover the cost of gun violence. They took their cue from successful lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Perhaps other cities will follow. I support this legal strategy, even if the lawyers end up with most of the money.
But, beyond the arguments about policy options, we need to look honestly at this peculiar gun culture in which we live, and learn something about ourselves from it.
When I was a newspaper reporter in Florida years ago, I reported a story about a man who broke into a home and assaulted the couple who lived there. A neighbor heard the commotion, grabbed his handgun, went outside, and saw a man jump into a car and drive away. The neighbor, assuming the man was a criminal, fired at the car but missed.
As I interviewed the neighbor, I was horrified that he would open fire on a person who was a possible crime suspect leaving the scene and posing no apparent threat to anyone. I assumed that the sheriff's deputies would charge the neighbor with a misdemeanor. When I asked what the deputies had said to him, the neighbor replied, ``They said, 'Thanks for helping out.'''
I asked my editor for guidance on how to write the story. He said, ``What story?'' I suggested there was a story not only in the assault on the couple but in the deputies' ignoring an obvious violation that could have resulted in a killing. ``It's no big deal,'' he said. I ended up writing a couple of paragraphs about the assault.
