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How will you keep your kids busy this summer vacation?

 Swimming lessons

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I had planned a commentary on New Year’s Resolutions, which I assure you would have been witty and thought-provoking. I had looked forward to exploring some lighter issues now that we were through an election year.

But December 14 we watched as news unfolded from Newtown, CT of 27 dead. It was shocking for occurring in what is usually a season of peace, and at a school. Shocking, but unexpected? If we are honest, we should have known this would happen at some point.

Happen again at some point. Remember Columbine? Red Lake? There have been at least eight school shootings with multiple fatalities in the last decade, including two in Minnesota. Overall, we average a shooting with multiple fatalities every 5.9 days! And that’s not counting individual shootings; in 2012 there were almost 30,000 gun deaths – about 12,000 of them murders. No other country with a functioning government even comes close, not even per capita.

That should horrify us. Yes, there are shootings in self-defense and by law enforcement, but they are all shootings. Highway deaths were at alarming levels: we enacted tougher laws against drunk driving and erected speed limit signs and guardrails. Seven people died from poisoned Tylenol and we began requiring sealed bottles. But we do little about gun violence. Already one senses the urgency fading (Hey! Oscar nominations are out!) and sides being drawn up to dig in for a fight.

We need to discuss how to address gun violence, rationally but NOW. We can’t do as some are saying yet again, wait until things quiet down. THEY NEVER QUIET DOWN. Every 5.9 days, multiple fatalities. 30,000 gun deaths a year.

“Discuss” has to mean a genuine debate, and by that I mean the discussion advances the debate. It’s not enough to recycle and repeat the same arguments, louder. We cannot afford one side repeating “guns are evil,” the other claiming a right to have whatever they want.

I am a gun owner, bird hunter and trap shooter; I don’t believe guns themselves are evil. Guns are sporting goods – some guns, anyway. Guns have been essential tools in defending our country and our neighborhoods.

That said, what was essential to win World War II is not essential for me to have at home. As George H.W. Bush expressed when he resigned from the NRA in the 1990s, the way to be a responsible gun owner is to be reasonable, not militant.

The Second Amendment was never intended to apply universally to individual, unrestricted ownership. Obviously: we have gun control laws. The first time the Supreme Court ever struck down a law based on the Amendment was in 2008, and that was on a sweeping handgun ban. Registration, background checks and some training requirements have all been upheld in the courts. The Constitutionality issue is overplayed.

There is room for debate, no matter what the extremes tell us. Remember what is at stake: lives are being lost. We can’t be distracted because of a few loud voices.

We should require registration. We are required to register our cars and our dogs, but not our firearms? Is the fear of universal confiscation any more than a fringe argument, usually invoking Hitler?

Some arms and accessories don’t belong in private hands. The rapid-firing weapons and large clips used in many shootings don’t have a purpose that outweighs the risk. We already have a line here; let’s just redraw it with a bold marker.

Laws should be uniform. The argument that gun control laws do not work is not valid when someone can travel a few miles and find a different set of laws. And there are loopholes all over the place: at some gun shows, for example.

We need to make effective mental health care more available. The Newtown shooter had seen a therapist – it won’t prevent all fatalities – but it will help. It will help reduce all killings.

We need to be more effective as parents and/or adults. We need to lock up firearms and get more involved in children’s lives and decisions. We need to be more spiritual and less material.

We do not need to introduce guns everywhere as a deterrent or defense. More guns seem to promote more guns, no matter whose hands they’re in. And they don’t always stay in those hands.

We need to hold lawmakers accountable. In the last couple of years Congress has slipped amendments into unrelated bills that exempted dealers from verification of stolen guns, exempted veterans from certain background checks based on mental health, etc. We’ve seen politicians exploit the fear of guns to the extreme as well, alienating many who would accept rational measures. Lawmakers seem to be more accountable to campaign contributions and passionate blocs than to those they represent.

Consider that in the 2012 Aurora, CO massacre, for example, the shooter fired 30 rounds in under 30 seconds. 200 years ago a good shooter could maybe fire 30 rounds in an hour and a half. The men who adopted the Second Amendment had no knowledge of where we would be today, nor should we expect them to have been omniscient.

The Founding Fathers didn’t give everyone the right to vote, let slavery persist, never accounted for lawmakers acting in their own interest, etc. We have amended the Constitution and our thinking since then. Clinging to an unfettered right to ownership of all weapons shouldn’t stop us from working with this.

As a rural 1960s Minnesota boy with a crew cut, wearing a flannel shirt and Red Wing boots, I took a handgun to school. Another kid and I brought them for show-n-tell, waving them around in front of the class. It was not a big deal then, we just kept them in our coats the rest of the day. No one thought twice.

But times change, and we have to change. Can we really just let the carnage continue? There has to be a middle ground between a police state and a Wild West atmosphere.

Let’s not let the debate lose momentum, but let’s be civil, reasonable and respectful at the same time. Sift through the arguments and reject the distractions. A good share of 30,000 lives per year depends on it.