We don't know the death toll or even if there is one, but we know two things will happen. A lot of people will talk about things that should be done, and nothing at all will happen because our political leaders are terrified of that tiny minority known as the National Rifle Association.
This isn't about taking anyone's guns away. It isn't about preventing anyone from buying and owning the most obscene weapons, weapons the founders would never have envisioned. It isn't even about those poor, sad men who believe they need state-of-the-art weaponry if the time ever comes to overthrow the government.
It isn't about registration and/or licensing, even though I believe those would be very sensible steps to take.
Universal background checks.
Before anyone buys a gun, they should have to provide identification to the seller, who then would check to be sure he wasn't selling the gun to a criminal, to someone who is mentally ill or to a child.
Look at the graphic. Fully 85 percent of NRA members support at least some form of background checks. The numbers of people against checks is ridiculously small, but that doesn't matter to the NRA. To those worthies, any step -- no matter how small, no matter how sensible -- puts us on the slippery slope toward a time when jackbooted thugs from the United Nations will confiscate their guns, ban country music and make Jane Fonda's birthday a national holiday.
Of course, they're more subtle than that. If you listen to the NRA, you'll hear what an inconvenience it would be for someone only exercising his right as an American to have to wait for a background check.Inconvenience? God forbid anyone should ever have to be inconvenienced.
Do you know where else we inconvenience people? We don't allow them to drive under the influence of alcohol. In 2010, there were 32,885 deaths in this country due to automobiles, with 10,228 due to drunk drivers.
It's actually fascinating how similar the numbers are. In 2010 and 2011, roughly 32,000 Americans died because of guns. If we subtract the 19,000 where the gun supposedly made suicide easier, that leaves about 13,000 dead as a result either of homicides or accidents.
Yet we have no problem inconveniencing honest, sober drivers by occasionally making them stop at checkpoints designed to catch drunk drivers. And even then, the police will arrest someone who has had too much alcohol even if there has been no problem coming from it.
As much as I hate to admit it, there were times when I was younger -- more than 30 years ago -- when I went out with friends, consumed alcoholic beverages and drove home with blood alcohol levels definitely above 0.08 percent (the legal limit in many states). I didn't drive erratically and I never had an accident or caused anyone else to, but if I had been stopped at a checkpoint, I would have been arrested.
And before you say that gun ownership is a protected right, remember that the type of people who would be prevented from owning guns would be people who for one reason or another have surrendered the right. Criminals and crazies.
I can throw amendments around too. Four and five -- unreasonable search and seizure, and self-incrimination.
None of our rights are absolute anyway. You cannot advocate the violent overthrow of the government, you can't incite to riot and you can't yell "theater" in a crowded fire.
So if your argument against background checks is inconvenience, too bad.
If you're afraid of the government knowing you own a gun, I don't see anything about that anywhere in the Constitution. If we Americans ever did have the right to live secretly, it has been gone for a long time.
A really long time.
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