Shooting the works

America has a gun problem. Just like it has a drug, sex and a monetary distribution problem. Most of America doesn't know how to deal with its firearms.

Jon Zemke St. Michael Speaking

At the same time, though, I couldn't quite handle telling my all-too-typical friend how foolish he looked. Which was good, because it's not wise to piss off the other two people with whom you're crammed in a pickup truck cab.

But a ride that long in quarters that close, stuck in Chicago traffic on the way to Madison, is bound to drive people to conversation, even if their truck isn't going anywhere.

"How in God's name can you support something that's main purpose is to kill people?" Bill said.

I didn't have the heart to point out to Bill that he had been chain smoking the entire trip. We had just heard another update of the Mount Morris six-year-old shooting death on WJR, so the subject of gun control had come up.

"That's what guns do. They kill people," Bill said. "There is really no reason to have them in today's society."

"I can tell by how you generalize, you're not only wrong, but you sound like an idiot," Ben said. "Guns do other things besides kill people."

"Like what, maiming, causing great bodily harm, employing mass carnage?" Bill said.

"They're an Olympic sport," I said. "And without guns there isn't much left to control the wildlife population."

"OK, come in from left field, Bill," Ben said. "Guns may kill a lot of people, but so do other things, and more efficiently too."

"Like what?" Bill asked.

"You're in one now," Ben said. "Thousands of people die, are maimed and cause great bodily harm with cars everyday."

"Yeah, but we need cars," I said. "They allows us to live as comfortably as we do. We don't need guns."

"We may need cars, but why are they designed to go above the speed limit?" Ben said. "The point is you're trusted to use it responsibly if you own one. You have to respect something that powerful."

"But responsible drivers respect their cars," Bill said. "They know what's safe and what's not. They know their vehicle."

"A lot of people don't have any respect for guns though," Ben said. "The media bombards us with how cool guns are, and how to use them irresponsibly. We just don't know how to handle them."

"But if guns weren't here, there wouldn't be a problem," Bill said. "Violent criminals wouldn't be able to buy semi-automatic assault rifles over the internet. Children wouldn't find guns and shoot their classmates."

"That's absurd. The thought of abolishing the second amendment in order to eliminate the gun problem makes as much sense as prohibition. It'd be a noble experiment, but guns are too ingrained into our society for it to work. We've been raised with guns as if they're cool, then later on told they're bad. Now, as adolescents, we have to deal with them with our limited understanding."

"At least it would begin to stop the flow of guns. Would-be criminals wouldn't be able to become armed at their local sporting goods store."

"If guns were banned people would still be able to buy a box of bullets as easily as you can get an eighth now, though."

"But you can buy a gun now almost as easily as a six-pack," I said.

"I'm not saying there shouldn't be any restrictions. But banning guns makes as much sense as 'Just Say No' or forced abstinence," Ben said. "Americans love money, sex, drugs and violence, and they'll go to serious lengths to get them. People who don't know anything about guns usually fear them, so they don't respect them."

"So because of this fear, people should have guns to defend themselves then?" Bill said. "If that happened, we'd walk around like a bunch of armed paranoid wackos, scared of what might be in our children's pockets."

"No, a majority of us aren't wackos, but at the same time a lot of us don't respect guns. Anyway, most people who use them violently only know how to pop the clip in and pull the trigger. People should learn how to deal with firearms instead of ignoring them, because they're not going to go away."

"I'm not even talking about violent criminals. This was a six-year-old who committed cold-blooded murder. He found a gun some other punk kid was hiding. And that punk stole it from a neighbor who probably had it for protection in his neighborhood. Had guns been banned, that gun wouldn't have been available."

"Be realistic. After 200-plus years of having our pick of the best firearms available, then conquering the world with them, guns just won't suddenly disappear. That child, that punk kid, the parents or the original owner didn't respect that gun. It wasn't locked away, there was no gun lock for it, and to those kids it was just another toy. If we're going to glorify guns to our children then we need to teach them how to respect something so powerful."

-Jon Zemke owns three guns and respects them more than most people. Luckily, all three are locked in his dad's gun cabinet until hunting season.