Like most of the country, I’ve spent the weekend steeped in the events in Aurora Colorado.  I stop short of calling it a tragedy because the shootings there seem so much more nefarious than that to me.  It would have been a tragedy if 70 people had been killed or injured by a flash flood or a fire or a tornado.  Something as meticulously planned and executed as this is just evil.  It’s evil regardless of the mental state of James Holmes.

When the news was first breaking, I thought of that trite old NRA slogan:  “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”  That didn’t ring true to me when I was a kid and it’s lost credibility over the years as we’ve all been reminded that people with guns kill people and sometimes people in body armor with guns kill people.  Guns don’t kill by themselves.  By the same token, a guy can’t take down 70 others with a knife or a blunt instrument.  He needs fire power.

Of course Aurora has brought gun control to the forefront – again – and with it the absolutist tendencies of the American mind.  The NRA has done an excellent job of convincing the gun-owning public that even the most minor regulation of gun commerce is the first step on an extremely slippery slope to the complete repeal of the Second Amendment.  For their part, the advocates of gun control have allowed that term to remain so nebulous that they have essentially facilitated the NRA’s efforts.

I’ve often marveled that the first clause of the Second Amendment has been lost – the one that says the right to keep and bear arms grows out of the need for a “well regulated militia.”  Clearly the intent was never for every yahoo who’s seen too many Clint Eastwood movies to go skulking around with a Glock in his pants itching for a chance to show what a man he is.  Not only did the drafters specifically invoke the militia, they call for one that is “well regulated.”  Regulated.  Controlled.  Not a big leap, is it?

We also forget that at the time the Constitution was ratified, we not only didn’t have a standing army, we didn’t have large organized police forces.  Early Americans had a much greater need to protect themselves.  At the same time, they weren’t as ginned up to use their guns without any training or practice as they are today.  They took their guns far more seriously.

That’s not to say I think we don’t have responsible gun owners today.  I grew up in a house with guns.  My Mom and Dad went on many a deer hunting trip early in their marriage and my brother and sister and I knew there were shot guns in the house, but we knew they weren’t toys.  My father never took them out except to clean them or to use them.  I’m not a pacifist who thinks no one should own a firearm under any circumstances.  I appreciate gun owners who take their responsibility seriously and learn to use their weapons properly.

But we don’t require this.  Why?  It’s been pointed out before that none of us can operate a car legally without proving our competence.  And if we want to ride a motorcycle, we have to take yet another test.  Being “well regulated” would seem to call for such a requirement to own a gun – again, to keep the yahoos from threatening the safety of the rest of us.  The most frightening words I heard after the shootings was Texas congressman Louie Gohmert asking if there wasn’t someone “packing” who could have taken Holmes down in the theater.  Exactly how big a weapon would someone need to “pack” to cut through Holmes’ body armor?  Don’t forget that Holmes’ outgoing voice mail message set off alarms for the owner of a shooting club he tried to join.  If Holmes couldn’t get a gun without training, he might have been stopped at that point.

This brings us to semi-automatic and assault weapons.  I think it’s time to put the NRA on the defensive and force them to make the logical case for anyone not in the military to need one of these.  I’m certain they can’t, but it would be interesting to hear them try.

The trouble with the Aurora case is that Holmes had no record and probably wouldn’t have been stopped by a background check and waiting period.  His is the kind of case the NRA loves.  They can point to him to show – supposedly – that gun control won’t work.

Here’s the thing:  It doesn’t have to – not completely.  The NRA is right that criminals acquire guns illegally and gun control measures won’t necessarily affect those.  But since when have we decided not to pass laws because some people would break them?  Why should we have any laws at all if that’s the gauge?  Some people smoke crack and shoot up heroin.  They get their supplies illegally, so why should we have laws against their use?  Some people without driver’s licenses will steal cars and possibly do injury or other harm with them.  Why should we require law-abiding citizens to have licenses then?  It simply doesn’t make sense.

Since the term “gun control” has become toxic in American politics, we need first to give it up.  I hate the idea of “branding” in such a situation, but if the 1% can become “job creators,” the move to regulate firearms can become something like the “citizen protection movement.”  Or since polls show that people who don’t think more gun control is needed are largely in favor of the incremental steps that are part of gun control, don’t name the larger goal at all, just put through the small steps and make the NRA fight each one.  Baby steps can get us where we want to go – without undermining the Second Amendment.