The oft-quoted Rifleman’s Creed has a nugget of real-world wisdom in its juvenile crudeness. Using the term “rifle,” or alternately “weapon,” is a way to place a firearm firmly in the context of “tool,” and avoids the enormous rhetorical baggage that the word “gun” has to endure. I’d go so far as to say that lumping the term in with genitalia (as the creed does) is probably a good fit, if based only on the emotional response that discussing either in public will get you.

Because the fact is, the topic of “gun rights” vs “gun control” generates so much polarizing irrationality, it might as well be removed from the public arena for the next generation until people can learn to speak to each other on the topic, rather than at each other. Seriously. Nothing’s going to happen, and – for now, at least – that may well be a good thing, as it seems likely that anything that could happen would be trouble.

I am generally leery of gun control laws for a variety of reasons; practically speaking, there’s no unifying problem that merits a one-size-fits-all-policy. Governor Shumlin’s excuse in avoiding the topic that the only meaningful way to approach the issue would be from the federal level is, from this standpoint, 100% bass-ackwards. What might be called for in New York City, is certainly not called for in my childhood town of Paint Lick, Kentucky.

But I’m leery for other reasons as well. First, there is a cultural reality, here. Guns are an ingrained part of the culture of much of the country; they are prized, collected, built, displayed, named, and are passed down as totems of family and regional heritage. Whether or not any one of us embrace this cultural component is irrelevent; it is real, and merits a degree of respect and, yes, even deference. It is a passive cultural component after all, not an “active” one that dictates how we treat each other, and that may conflict with basic human rights.

The “right to bear” is recognized as a right by a clear majority, because that majority grew up with the expectation of that right. It is, yes, a “manifestation” of the “right to self-defense” (which few would argue against), but also straddles the “right to private property.”

Which brings us right up to crazed-irrationality side one. Let’s look at that “right to private property.” Is it an absolute right? Is it ever infringed upon?

Don’t like that one? Let’s get closer to home, then: how about the right to free speech? There is no more fundamental human right than that, and I don’t think any would argue that it has remained absolute or sacrosanct. Many of us would debate whether or not the restrictions that have been enacted are reasonable, or even moral. Some in recent years seem draconian – but none of us would argue against, for example, the classic “yelling fire in a crowded theater” restriction.

The keywords here are “argue,” and “debate.” We are capable of that with questions of public policy, and those things we regard as our rights. Sure, we get heated, but we can have those exchanges. We can discuss whether a little security here is worth a little infringement there – or, maybe more frequently, how to manage policy when one person’s fundamental right of free speech would seem to inhibit another person’s fundamental right of free speech. It is the fact that we CAN have these debates that defines us as a civilization, rather than a bunch of warring clans.

But the most vocal on the gun-rights side seem persistently incapable of engaging in such debates. By refusing to engage in a policy discussion about when, where, and under what circumstances this fundamental right of self-defense can be managed, they elevate it to (dare I say it) some sort of unique, “special” right. The only right that can’t be discussed. Even more sacred than the right to free speech.

And the key word there, in case you missed it, is sacred. As in, an article of faith. Like they have in churches.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m generally against mixing church and state.

Okay, now – take that in. Breathe deep. Feels good, don’t it, GMD-ers? Enjoy it, because here is where I pull the band-aid off and put crazed-irrationality side two under the microscope. And yes, I may well mix more metaphors before I’m done.

To see why the gun control side is just as wacky and impenetrable, I need point no further than Burlington, and the June 3 meeting of Burlington’s Charter Change Committee, chronicled by kestrel. Buried within the meeting minutes is a thesis statement that, while rarely (well, not that rarely) spoken aloud by advocates, so plainly informs their advocacy (emphasis added):

[Vince] Brennan asked about the gun manufacturing business, Century Arms, in Franklin County and the jobs it provides. [Marie] Adams said it’s a moral question, and do we really need that type of business?  Shouldn’t we try to develop other industries in that area?

There it is, unchallenged, and plain: the problem with guns is that they are immoral.. They are an evil. Inherently. Not a tool. Not a manufactured mechanism of metal. An evil.

With that one statement, the lines of debate are drawn between good and evil, right and wrong, darkness and light.

And against evil, there must be no quarter given. Nor can you attempt to “understand” evil, because in doing so, you validate it – and become tainted by it.

Kind of a debate killer right there, don’t you think?

If you think this was an unfortunate turn of phrase indicative of nothing, you’re kidding yourself. As one example, consider the ill-conceived eye-roller of an anthology series “Gun,” which followed the passage of a single firearm through many lives – chronicling it’s destrictive wake as if it were the demon in the Denzel Washington clunker Fallen, diabolically and murderously hopping from body to body.

I, for one, have a difficult time granting a spiritual component to a tool as a precondition of debate.

Or to return to the comparison of a discussion on the right to free speech, I am a lot more open to having a debate with someone else on the necessity of limitations placed on the “right to free speech” within public policy if I feel they agree that there is a right to free speech, than I am debating with someone who refuses to recognize such a right even exists. Ugh.

So you see my problem with diving in, here. It’s not that I’m feeling cynical or unwilling to discuss the topic. There are people of good will on the two sides. There are people with good information on the two sides. There are people who passionately want to do what’s right on the two sides.

And, of course, there are more than two sides.

It’s just that – for now and for the forseeable future – the arena of debate looks like a mosh pit full-to-bursting with hot and cold running reactionaries.

(There – told you I’d do that again).

With everybody entering the arena of debate as a reactionary, the only changes in policy that could emerge from that arena are likely to be, well… reactionary changes. Coming from the hippocratic approach of “first do no harm,” maybe it’s best, then, that nothing happen at all for now.