Another week, another few 100 dead in the United States of America by gun violence. This was a particularly bad week of course, since one person took over 50 lives at once. Usually it’s just about 90 killed per day, so yesterday was a bad day. I’m sure many people have been thinking and praying about this problem over the past 24 hours – how’s that going for them?

Please note that I don’t want to make light of these deaths. I believe they are absolutely horrific. I am rather suggesting that our entire country makes light of them on a regular, daily basis with our attitudes toward gun violence. And that’s a big part of the problem. We have become inured to gun violence, whether in certain neighborhoods in Chicago, in our schools, at concerts, or anywhere. Our attitude: it’s going to happen, and I hope and pray it doesn’t happen to me.

But here’s the problem. Our societal attitude on guns is complete and utter bullshit (that’s a technical political term: it means that a large, male bovine defecated on our country, and we don’t care.) It is based on a number of lies that we have been fed over time. And we have bought these lies so well that we now simply see the situation as beyond hope, and buy into the idea that “thinking and praying” is an acceptable answer.

Lie #1: the 2nd Amendment protects every individual’s right to have whatever guns they like, and to use them however they like so long as they don’t shoot anyone else. Unless of course they are provoked, in which case they can shoot other people. See below for the answer.

Lie #2: good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. This is sometimes put as “more guns will lead to less crime – if we are all armed, who is going to take the chance?” This one is both prima facie ridiculous, and all of the evidence shows the opposite. Good guys with guns commit suicide more often than they stop a bad guy. Good guys with guns hurt themselves and others, especially when little kids get a hold of a gun in their home. There are many more studies and stats out there – if you are going to argue against them, I doubt ANYTHING I say could convince you, because you effectively have a religious belief. Two easy examples though: in the 4-5 most violent neighborhoods in Chicago there are a LOT of guns, and that is the main thing that makes them less safe. People there aren’t shot more because they don’t have guns to defend themselves, but rather because many do have guns – and then both gun users and innocent bystanders get killed. On a second point, what good do guns to against someone like the shooter in Las Vegas? The cops apparently did their job, but a bad guy with a gun shot 100s of people in a few minutes, which was only possible because he had access to a gun, magazines and ammunition that allowed him to fire hundreds of rounds in minutes.

Lie #3: if we take away guns from law abiding citizens, only criminals will have guns. Ummmmm… Ok, that’s true. But it says absolutely nothing. First, no one is suggesting taking ALL guns away. Second, most other industrialized countries allow their citizens to be armed, just in a well-regulated way — regulated for common sense and public safety.

Lie #4: I need my gun to overthrow the government in case of fascism (i.e. any government I don’t agree with.) This one is the easiest of all! No you don’t. Want to know why? Because it’s illegal to try to overthrow your government! You have no right to that! Now if you ever act on that belief, I think we have a nice, cozy jail cell for you – assuming the authorities don’t kill you before you get there. Good luck with this one traitor.

Lie #5: the situation is hopeless, it’s in the Constitution, and there’s nothing we can do to change this.

1 and 5 are the important ones, of course. The rest are just stories and rationalizations that have sprung up over time in the gun owning community as attempts to frame the debate away from the real issues.

Rather than rearguing the text of the Constitution (I’m sure most of us know the full text, although some don’t pay attention to the militia and “well-regulated” bits), I think it’s easier to take a brief walk through history – and really just since 1990.

In 1990, former Supreme Court Justice Waren Burger gave an interview in which he stated that the idea of an individual unfettered right to own a gun is “a fraud on the American public.” He was right. It was a fraud being perpetrated by the NRA and the gun lobby, both of whom were profiting from pushing that fraud on the public. In the 1970s, the NRA was all about gun safety and responsible ownership. By the 1990s, it had morphed into a “right to own a gun no matter what” organization.

From the founding of this country until the 1980s/90s, we had rational discussions about guns, combined with rational gun ownership. We still had a lot of guns out there, and this led to more violence than other nations with less guns – but the guns weren’t flowing as freely as they are today. That free flow of legal guns, which leads directly into the market for illegal guns, is driving our current problems.

Sometimes shooters have legal access to a gun – we need to move back to a place where we can use common sense and stop this. One example: I’m not particularly afraid that a person with a hunting rifle is going to go on a mass killing spree. But someone with an assault rifle? Those are only good for killing people. Likewise, I’m personally going to argue (and this one will likely meet with more disagreement), that there is simply no reason for people to have semi-automatic handguns, and even less reason to carry them outside of your home. Handguns exist to kill people. If you are so afraid of them that you need to carry one, perhaps you should focus on other laws that would make you less afraid, instead of just reacting based on your fear. And then there are high capacity magazines, modifications, very limited regulations on gun ownership or how gun owners must store guns, etc. etc. etc. There are LOTS of common sense things we can do.

But the gun lobby responds to each by acting as if the Constitution and the Republic will fall if these are enacted, leading to the kind of fascist tyranny that only Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton could like!!!

Back to the problem — the NRA and gun lobby have done a GREAT job at framing this debate over the past 30+ years. In fact, we hardly ever see anyone framing it on the other side, and certainly not in a way that is politically meaningful in the halls of Congress. So how can we take it back? Some suggestions:

1. Create a counter-NRA organization – start with what Bloomberg is doing and run from there. This organization needs:

a. a PR and education campaign for rational gun laws — including pushing back to the first 200 years  of our country on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment
b. real research on how gun laws work in other places with significantly less gun violence
c. a strong lobbying organization – which requires members and donations, big and small
d. a highly publicized report card for all local, state and national politicians — look at how they voted, and give them some easy to pass or fail tests on gun laws

2. If you don’t like gun violence, stop thinking and praying, and get off your ass to DO something. As Ben Franklin and others have told us, g*d helps those who help themselves — if you are religious, please take that into consideration.

3. Don’t assume the battle is lost — really it’s only been a one-sided war so far, and that’s why the NRA/gun lobby are winning.

Bottom line: if you don’t want America to be the country with the most gun violence in the world, then take some personal responsibility and do something about it. Otherwise, the NRA wins — which is great for gun company profits, but pretty bad for our country.