Since the furor over gun control has died down for now, I figure that this might be a safe time to admit that I’m a gun control advocate who supports the rights of gun owners. I think that people have the right to own guns, without harrassment. Where I diverge from the NRA is that I think that those guns should be registered, and their use should be controlled just like any other deadly device.

The NRA would likely say that any attempt to register the ownership or use of guns would be the first step to the end of life as we know it. I don’t think that most NRA members are idiots, though, so they probably don’t believe that. Maybe they do. Jackboots kicking open doors in the night, invading marauders, all of that. Got to admit, if I thought that scenario was likely, I’d want to be armed, too. Tactical nuclear weapons wouldn’t be out of the question. I figure, though, that most gun owners simply want to keep their guns because they like to hunt, or to target shoot, or because they want to be able to protect themselves if the need should arise. Some want to keep their guns not so much for what they are, but as a symbol of independence from governmental control. Some want to keep their guns simply because gun ownership is something they like - it’s part of their culture. Or maybe they don’t even use guns, but they like having the gun that their grandfather left to them, sitting up over the mantel. They’re not maniacs, and they’re not idiots. They simply like guns.

Guns are inherently dangerous, but not if they're used correctly. Got to admit that the NRA does a good job of promoting gun safety -- so good, it was even part of the plot of an episode of The Simpsons, once. Odds are, if you went to an NRA member’s house and asked to see their gun, they’d have to get it from a locked cabinet. And if they wanted the ammunition for it, that’d come from a second locked cabinet. No one knows what a weapon can do as well as people who use them. Ask anyone who owns and uses a gun. Especially the ones who’ve actually used their personal gun to defend themselves. They know the effectiveness of having a weapon.

Of course, so did the kids at Columbine. Remember Columbine? That's where you move from the gun culture to the effect of uncontrolled gun ownership and use. I can't honestly say that were guns to be registered, and their use controlled, as I wish, that Columbine, and all the other Columbines, would not have happened. But I don't think that registration and background checks would have been that big a price to pay for just the chance of preventing that massacre.

Unfortunately, the NRA leadership does.