I totally don’t buy the terms of the American debate about gun control. Those who oppose it tend to want no restrictions on gun ownership at all, while those who favor it sometimes seem to want to get all guns out of private hands.

This is a false conflict. There’s no reason you can’t support the right of Americans to keep and bear arms and yet want the strictest sort of regulations in place to keep them out of the wrong hands.

I like the idea of the Second Amendment because I don’t like the idea of all guns being in the hands of government officials. I don’t trust government officials. I also think there could be highly intrusive limitations on gun ownership that wouldn’t significantly abridge the right of Americans to own guns.

One such intrusive limitation might involve forcing all members of a household where guns are kept to pass the same background check as the household member who purchased the guns, or for the purchaser of the guns to offer proof that he or she has taken reasonable precautions to insure that other members of the household have no access to the guns.

The extremist opinions on both sides of this issue are somewhat lunatic, to my way of thinking.

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