Hero Gun Owners?

What if the minority of those Americans who are gun owners, stepped up to the plate, behaved like leaders instead of following the prescripts of the National Rifle Association, and agreed that gun violence prevention is needed today in America? What if, instead of walking around with guns in their possession, like what may become reality in Florida with DeSantis leading the way, the “good guys with guns” stood up for what is right? What if, in stepping up to the plate, gun owners would act like heroes to the rest of us and demand effective gun violence prevention?

Dreaming?

Isn’t safety an issue? Isn’t the sanctity of life an issue for gun owners?

I believe in Pedro Noguera when he says that he doesn’t think “anybody feels good about where we are at – even gun enthusiasts.” [The Ledger (1/30/23)] Noguera is the dean of the school of education at the University of Southern California and a sociologist who has studied gun violence for more than two decades. The Ledger added, “but in a country where attitudes about guns and violence are often contradictory, charting a course of action makes for uneasy calculus.”

Here’s one easy calculus: Gun owners continue to fight against sensible measures. Insurance for guns for example. Sensible. We have insurance for cars, another potential deadly weapon, so why wouldn’t insurance work for guns? Another example: A ban on assault-style weapons. Sensible since it serves no purpose on American streets and parks, but gun enthusiasts? You don’t hear a peep from them in support.

If it is true that gun owners want to do the right thing, but it’s the politicians who are pushing more guns with less regulation, then gun owners need to speak up, lest they want the popular opinion to be that owners of guns failed us all.