Whom to Debate about Gun Control

After another mass-casualty shooting, the responses have been predictable but for a stronger and more insightful comment from the White House than could have been expected. Overall, there is a resignation that because of how the country is run, no meaningful change in gun laws is possible for the foreseeable future.

Like most academics, I live in a relatively-cloistered social situation where I am assured of near-universal agreement on issues like gun control. Pauline Kael said she didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon because she lived in a similar kind of environment.

I know this isn't the case. And I know that I am not likely to change my mind because I understand myself as right, and most people rarely change their minds anyway. But listening to someone with a different perspective and addressing oneself to another with respect and recognition can be valuable even if there's nothing found of common ground.

What I want to know is what is the most different and the most intelligent support for absolute freedom of arms such as we have in the US today. 

I know about the second amendment. Whether or not it prohibits any restrictions on guns, the question is whether it should. 

I know the argument about a fundamental freedom of self-defense keeping a potential tyrant at bay, and I reject it. The US government has won 100% of armed conflicts with its own citizens, and with other countries' citizens, it can do quite a bit of damage.

I know the related argument that gun laws will only stop law-followers from owning them, and violence will remain, and I reject it. Like so much else of the postcolonial world, there are two kinds of experience with gun regulations. In Western Europe and East Asia, there are very wealthy free societies, and very few people die from guns. In the global South, on the other hand, where prohibitions are not effectively enforced because institutions do not function like they do here, guns are around and people use them.

America is of course a bit of a mix in colonial terms, historically and politically like South Africa and Brazil in some ways and unlike France and Japan. But the wealth and police power here suggest we could be like the settler-societies in Israel or Australia if institutionally committed. 

So what am I missing? This is a question I can answer looking around. Rarely do people who think differently from us fit neat intellectual caricatures. If they did, we'd all be wrong. It will take time, but we need to reach across this disagreement once we have all had time to think more.