Massacre: A Come Together Moment on Guns?

+AmazingWorld

In the wake of the most recent massacre and deaths of a Navy Petty Officer and four Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, many are concerned, perhaps rightly so, that our military bases and other domestic military installations are soft targets due to a decades long military directive instituted during the H W Bush presidency back in February of 1992 (DoD Directive 5210.56, February 25, 1992) http://usmilitary.about.com/ . We should re-examine those directives and rethink how we defend our men and women that serve here in America.

However, some gun rights activists are using this incident to stoke fear that the government is going to take away Americans' guns and their Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

No one is talking about banning guns. 

Having people continuously say that the government or anyone reasonable within the government is talking about 'banning guns' or is going to take away people's guns as the first line in any discussion about gun violence in America is really ridiculous. 

Do we need access to assault weapons as Americans to be safe?

Does it make us safer for the gun manufacturing pipelines of automatic and semi-automatic weapons to be wide open? 

Would universal background checks make it easier or less easy for criminals to have access to new or used guns? 

Aren't those reasonable, debatable questions? 

This doesn't have to be some existential threat to Second Amendment rights of American citizens. But, let's at least have a rational, sensible discussion and not one that starts out with what will never happen and that is not even a remote possibility nor a potential reality.

Fear is not our friend. Fear is the fuel of our collective enemy.