By President Obama’s directive, Vice President Joe Biden has worked out “reasonable gun controls.”

They were released with determination on Jan. 16.

Immediately National Rifle Association obstructionism and clairvoyance co-opt debate. “Nothing will happen.” “Nothing can happen,” is said assuredly over and over.

Yet, since polls solidly confirm that a majority of Americans favor reasonable controls, who’s calling the shots at the NRA? Association leaders must be hunting elk, buffalo, polar bears — perhaps even elephants on safari — while holding their machine-gun-equivalent 30-round rifles in cold hands, too shaky to bring down prey any other way.

Police departments across the nation want controls.

Think about it: Every day at work, how would anyone in a policeman’s uniform, even bulletproofed, not wonder if it’s his day to confront a deranged shooter spraying an assault weapon?

How about a teacher? First grade? Eighth grade? 12th grade? College level? A theater manager? In whatever venue, at a tense time when a shooter has stirred up chaos, what if almost everyone in the school or theater is packing a gun?

In the melee, these armed individuals have the right, their Texas Ranger’s duty, to fast-draw and take out someone pointing a drawn gun?

Chaos. Tragedy on top of tragedy.

After a month of comprehensive, transparent summation of all players’ points — even the NRA’s — how about ratifying the reasonable controls” aggregated by Biden?

They function in sanity, not in the fog of chaos.

Consider these controls:

• Upgrade universal background checks. No excuses. The database should be kept up-to-date. Add a coded confidential database of patients diagnosed and under prescriptions for socio-, pyscho- or bi-polar pathology. It can be done. Such buyers have no right to any weapon.
• Adequately fund (no short-changing, no poison pills in Congress) the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives computer services so the agency can be efficient and effective — for a welcome change.
• Close the gun show loophole that allows sales with no background checks required. The shows welcome trailers loaded with guns and ammunition and tailgate counters outside.
• If suspicious, educated gun salespeople should avoid or delay sales until a background check is complete.
• Ban — for private use — the wide variety of super lethal assault rifles. Those who want them should patriotically enlist in one of our military services. Yes, Uncle Sam can use your dedication overseas.

If you’re an NRA member, neither Obama, Biden, most Americans nor I want to take your guns away.

A suggestion: En masse, please demand that the engineers who have their cold hands on the throttle of the NRA freight train cease and desist and let reasonable controls happen. Tell them, “Let’s prefer readable ‘magazines,’ not worship Bushmasters. Take our train down another track.”

With that said, I have to be honest.

Even if all these town hall recommendations spread before the nation and the Congress are ratified, they won’t immediately bear much fruit.

They will be like dry-root saplings.

Sadly, there will be a meager harvest for several years. The country is already saturated with weapons of all kinds.

Fortunately, most are in the hands of good people who know how to keep them safe and how to use them for sport and personal security.

Just think and think again: Yes, there are inconveniences involved, but reasonable controls eventually can prevent many of the mass tragedies we suffer weekly in America.

Weather Journal

1 day ago