I’m writing this on the tenth anniversary of the Columbine Massacre, and in the shadow of a series of similar recent rampages: Binghamton and Virginia Tech stand out, along with several widely scattered domestic disputes that have resulted in the deaths or injuries of bystanders and police officers. It can be credibly argued that these outrages were perpetrated by seriously disturbed and disaffected people and have therefore no meaning for the rest of us. But as child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim once observed about the treatment prisoners like him received in the Nazi death camps, it was irrelevant, after a long period of anxiety, why any guard did or did not do anything; it was only important what the result was.

It’s fashionable for us liberal commentators, after mass shootings, to dig out our drums and begin beating them for more restrictive firearms-possession laws. As an attempt to open a debate, this may be a satisfying thing to do, but it’s doomed to go nowhere. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the right of individual citizens to bear arms is guaranteed by the Constitution. Any public statements by non-gun-bearing individuals who consider that wrong-headed invariably provoke virulent responses attacking not the arguments, but their proponents.

These responses are sometimes threatening and, to be honest, a bit intimidating. Years ago, when I deplored in print the witch-hunt impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, I received several pretty scary e-mails. When I asked my local chief of police what to do with them, he advised, “If they sign them, and you can verify the senders, print them out and save them in a file. If they don’t sign them, print them out, save them, and send me copies.” When the impeachment failed – as everyone knew it would – after a $40 million prosecution, the hordes of the righteous thundered off in other directions. They’re currently fighting what will turn out to be a rearguard action against repeal or invalidation of the Defense of Marriage Act, and are marshaling opposition to any debate considering reasonable restrictions on firearm ownership.

Gun control is, for the moment at least, moot. I doubt there’s a single member of Congress who’d introduce a bill restricting (for example) the ownership of so-called assault weapons. Not only would the National Rifle Association usher him swiftly out of office at the next election, but he would live in constant fear of any of the hundreds of thousands of American gun owners who are lately stockpiling weapons and ammunition at a record rate in order to combat the alleged “plot” by the current Administration to “take away their guns.” As things stand, that just isn’t going to happen. The Administration is wisely (in the political sense) deferring to Congress to provide the initiative, and Congress knows a high-voltage third rail when it sees one.

The argument for complete lack of restriction is the same one used to defend our intervention in Vietnam almost fifty years ago: that dominoes would soon be tumbling down a slippery slope, and international Communism would gain a stranglehold on Asia. The dominoes argument was dumb and disingenuous then, and it still is. If you Google Michael Moore’s interview with the late Charlton Heston (former titular head of the NRA, who waved a gun at one meeting much like Saddam Hussein in another famous clip), you’ll see a less-discussed anxiety: that “ethnics” will gain superior firepower, threatening the (white) rest of us who soon will be in the minority ourselves. In any case, there are more and more guns in our society every day, and more and more people carrying them for “protection” – from what, it’s not always clear.

As I see it, there are two widely divergent takes on the subject. The less organized one (rather like a herd of cats) decries the frequent headlines featuring “assault weapons” used to assault innocent victims; the other, very well organized, will not give an inch – not one BB gun! – lest the black helicopters swoop in and round up all their weapons. It’s pretty much a standoff, which will end eventually in compromise affirming that the common householder probably should not have weapons that can spray his neighborhood with high-velocity bullets. How much easier it would be to speak rationally to each other now, rather than after the litany of the dead has finally become epidemic and aroused currently uninvolved citizens.

Whether the Obama Administration is taking away citizens’ rights by refusing to challenge a judge’s order validating a ban on loaded, concealed weapons in national parks, or is instead protecting the rights of other citizens who need assurance that the guys drinking beer in the next campsite aren’t armed, obviously depends upon your point of view. Whether assault weapons ought to be protected from regulation depends upon your point of view: Are they marvels of the gunsmith’s art, or weapons designed to (paraphrasing Samuel Colt) make every little guy the equal of anyone else by giving him the ability to intimidate or kill? Whether talking radio heads are complicit in crimes by throwing red meat daily to the fantasies of the fatuous and disgruntled is certainly worth talking about. Both the First and Second Amendments are pretty generous by the standards of the rest of the world, but neither implies any untrammeled right to irresponsibility. We ought to remember, if our representatives on both sides of the issue try to work it out, that every action creates an opposite and equal reaction; whereas a mediating statement or act usually elicits another in return. Can’t we talk about this like adults?