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Gun violence issue cannot be solved by GOP or Dems

No one has all the answers regarding the recent spate of gun violence across the country.

But it seems unlikely government can end it.

We should stop asking government to end it.

We have to end it ourselves. One on one. That’s our only hope.

We’ve all heard the arguments from both sides of the political spectrum:

• We have to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals. We need more/better background checks. We need to make certain kinds of guns illegal.

• We need more law enforcement, backed by military firepower. We need more responsible citizens carrying weapons so they can take down the bad guys when they act. And bring back the death penalty.

In a logical world, both concepts have merit. But neither has a chance of working, especially in a nation as divided and illogical as ours has become.

First, there is no way to remove guns from the face of the Earth or from the hands of criminals. The Washington Post reported last year there are almost 400 million guns in the United States. That’s more guns than people.

Sure, government can track down all the registered guns and confiscate them. That might reduce the gun population to a couple of hundred million, all of them belonging to lawbreakers. Neither Democrats nor Republicans want to live in that America.

Laws can make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to own guns, but criminals don’t obey laws, so let’s just stop asking government to go there, at any level.

As for more cops and more private citizens packing more powerful weapons: That may decrease the odds for mass murder, but it increases the odds of accidental shootings exponentially.

It’s important to remember that mass shootings make headlines, but they’re still not “normal,” which is why they make headlines.

An overwhelming majority of gun-related deaths in America involve one angry or depressed or fearful individual shooting someone who didn’t deserve to be killed. Suicide is No. 1 on that list, beating homicide more than 3-2.

If we all take our guns out of our safes and our closets and start carrying them on our hips a la Billy the Kid, it might mean fewer victims in situations like the El Paso Walmart ... but it certainly will mean more accidents and more deadly spur-of-the-moment decisions we wish we could take back.

Rejecting both ends of the politicians’ plans doesn’t mean we do nothing.

We have to do something.

It starts and ends with the way we talk to each other, the words we choose, our body language.

We have to stop calling each other names.

We have to look for points we have in common and build from there.

We have to focus on issues, not political affiliations or nations of origin or religion.

If someone disagrees with something we say, we can’t convince them by saying it louder and more aggressively.

Both of our nation’s most prominent political parties are claiming God is on their side in the gun battles. Since their sides are so far apart, that seems unlikely.

If you’re looking for Scripture to help decide what’s right in this deadly debate, try Ephesians 4:32:

“Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Gun violence is not something government can resolve. We have to fix this ourselves.

— David Stevens

Publisher