People can own guns, but background checks are a true necessity

What's the most important of the Ten Commandments?

It may sound like a silly question, but it really isn't. If you look at the commandments, everything stems from the first one.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Honor your parents? Sure. Rest on the Sabbath? Good idea.

But the reason we listen to those and the others is that right at the beginning, God lets us know that he's in charge.

That's the way it usually works with a list. If your wife gives you a list of tasks to perform, the stuff at the top usually matters more than the stuff at the bottom.

When lists aren't written that way, it mostly seems to be done for dramatic reasons, to build suspense. If someone wins the jackpot on a TV game show, it may start with a year's supply of Turtle Wax and end with a new car or a trip around the world.

It's rarely the other way around.
The Ten Commandments are certainly the most famous list of its size, and the Bill of Rights would have to be second. They may not be strictly in order from 1-10. It's tough to argue that not being forced to quarter troops in your home (No. 3) is actually the third-most important.

But the First -- freedom of speech, religion, the press and the right to assemble peaceably -- is without question the one that covers the most ground and insures some of our most important rights.

 Yet none of those rights are completely unrestricted. You can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater or practice human sacrifice as part of your religion. You can't slander or libel people and safety sometimes limits the right to assemble.

Which brings us to the Second Amendment and the battle over the last 40 years against those who want to make one particular freedom the meaning of America.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It's difficult to imagine an amendment more confusingly written. Those on the far right completely dismiss the first part. To them all that matters is "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Those one the left stress the "well regulated Militia" part of the amendment. While it may be difficult to imagine, the U.S. did not always maintain a massive military in peacetime. The Founders were concerned that a large standing army could result in a military coup under some circumstances. But a country where individuals owned their own weapons and could assemble and serve when needed was seen as safer.

The idea currently espoused by the far right that the Founders wanted people to own guns to oppose government tyranny doesn't hold water when you consider how little faith most of the Founders had in the ability of common people to govern themselves.

Don't forget that many of them believed that landowners should be the only ones allowed to vote.

Forget that for a minute, though.

Let's not argue the right to gun ownership. Let's concede that point to the National Rifle Association while challenging the extremism of their argument.

What possible logical objection could a reasonable person have to licensing and registration? Large majorities of Americans believe both those things should be done and they do not consider them ways for the government to make it easier to confiscate weapons.

But no matter how reasonable proposals are, the NRA opposes everything. Their officials have said they consider any steps that could be taken as a slippery slope that will end with the government taking away our guns, making us eat tofu and listening to the song stylings of Justin Bieber.

So they oppose everything.

They argue that the right to keep and bear arms is absolute and that people should be allowed to own anything up to and including tactical nuclear weapons. I disagree with that, but that's not the point I want to address today.

I want someone to explain to me what possible logical reason anyone can have for opposing universal background checks anytime someone wants to buy a gun.

This is something the NRA opposes even when the purpose is to prevent terrorists from buying firearms.

They say legitimate gun owners shouldn't be inconvenienced by having to wait for background checks to be completed.

And that, as we say, is bullshit.

The fact is that a lot of people who can legally own guns should never have them. Remember the 11-year-old who just last week shot and killed an 8-year-old who wouldn't let him play with her puppy.

The gun was available to him because his father didn't secure it so he couldn't get it. I don't think the kid can be sent to prison for life, but how can someone who murders someone as a child ever turn out to be a decent person.

Thanks, NRA. Just another good guy with a gun protecting his family from criminals.