Guns don't kill people. People kill people. That's what the bumper-sticker says. If that isn't the most...what's the word...condescending? No. Insultingly obvious? Well, yes but....Oh, I've got it....If that bumper-sticker isn't the epitome of duh-ness, then I don't know what is.

Now, it's one thing to drive around (harmlessly) with a bumper-sticker on your the if-it-didn't-car, telling anyone who happens pull up behind you at a stop light that you actually understand a concept any 5-year-old kid with a functioning brain could immediately grasp. But it's another thing to actually use it as an argument in opposition to gun control!

Insert the word "tobacco" for "guns" and you'll see the inanity of the bumper-sticker argument. But even assuming that Charlton Heston and the rest of the National Rifle Association folks don't really take such foolishness seriously, I still haven't heard a coherent pro-gun "rights" argument.

And I'm not a knee-jerk, gun-control liberal. In fact, I'm somewhat ambivalent about guns. My people didn't need Waco or President Clinton to convince us that the IRS doesn't have a monopoly on big government tyranny. Plus, I'm part of the hip-hop generation - inventors of the don't-dis-me attitude. So the self-defense philosophy of Malcolm X sounds entirely reasonable to me: I'll be non-violent with you as long as you are non-violent with me. But if you should threaten the life of me or my family, then I won't hesitate to pop a cap in your you-know-what.

However, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Dr. King, the Dalai Lama and, especially, Jesus, have shaken my primitive belief in the American religion of redemptive violence at its foundation. So let's take a cursory glance at this gun issue.

While the Second Amendment argument is a fascinating intellectual exchange for legal scholars and interested lay people, I don't believe most folks think about such matters in terms of abstract legal semantics. So I'll leave it alone here.

For the sake of argument, let's grant the "right" to defend (with arms) against big government tyranny, etc. But let's keep it real. Even if you were the victim of some military police action and were justifiably defending yourself, you will still be crushed. Period.

What about defending yourself against murderers and thieves? That's the job of the police. (And it's also the reason police should be well compensated). Of course, cops cannot prevent every murder or theft. But the reality is: if someone seriously seeks to kill someone and the would-be victim doesn't know about the murder plot until the schemed has been hatched, chances are that person is going to be killed before he or she can even think about where the key to their gun box is located.

At the least, gun rights people are going to have to account for some hard facts, reported by former NRA member and son of a career Army officer, Tom Diaz, in his well-researched book: "Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America."

NRA fantasies aside, most gun deaths in America are not crime-related. "Although the U.S. firearms homicide rate is staggering when compared to virtually any other developed nation in the world, the plain fact is that most firearms' deaths stem not from homicide but from suicide," Diaz observes.

Not only are the majority of gun-related homicides committed by someone who knows the victim, but the killing usually is not related to some other crime like a drug deal gone bad or whatever.

"The fact is that the greater part of firearms violence in the United States does not stem from 'guns in the wrong hands.' It stems rather from the virtually unregulated distribution of an inherently dangerous consumer product....One of the biggest costs, and yet one that is least understood by the public - indeed hardly touched by Congress - is the sheer economic impact of gun violence," Diaz writes.

More disturbing is that "gun violence has a particularly perverse economic effect in the case of children. Like the tobacco industry, the gun industry underwrites large-scale campaigns that specifically target children as future consumers....Even those who begin smoking as children typically do not suffer catastrophic health effects until later, during their adult lives. (But) children shot by firearms do not enjoy the benefit of such delayed effect," Diaz continues.

Furthermore, the proportion of American homes that own firearms is declining dramatically. So gun ownership is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, according to a Justice Department survey. Only about 25 percent of adults in America own a gun, and when you look at the ratio for handguns exclusively, the number dips to one in six.

We haven't even touched on how the secrecy of the gun industry makes the tobacco folks look like a model of open democracy. Neither have we've dwelt on the fact that 40 percent of all gun transfers occur in unregulated secondary markets like gun shows and flea markets. Is there a straight-shootin' argument for gun rights?

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and syndicated columinist. He can be reached via email: sgonsalves@capecodonline.com

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