Just try

It's only occasionally that the pants get political, and I usually deliberate it about it for quite a while before posting. My motivation in eventually posting something that can be controversial is based on two questions: 1) Will this inspire conversation? and 2) Will this stir hearts to action?

I can't think of two more important questions in the wake of 59 people being murdered and hundreds more injured this week in Las Vegas.

Look, I didn't grow up in a gun culture. My grandfather was a veteran, but to my knowledge, he didn't pick up a gun after returning to the U.S. after being injured in the Battle of the Bulge. My mom's favorite weapon is guilt. The most threatening thing my father has wielded is a water pic.

I did grow up in a family that believed strongly in the freedoms protected by the Constitution. No one I grew up with is going to begrudge someone the right to arm themselves. But as conservative as many people in my family are, I don't think anyone will argue that everyone has the right to arm themselves with weapons capable of killing and wounding many with one trigger pull.

This is where it gets complicated. The proverbial "slippery slope." If we don't let the "good" people arm themselves, only the "bad" people will be armed. It's unconstitutional. Who gets decide who "good" people are and "bad" people are? Does restricting access leave us vulnerable to a "tyrannical" government?

I don't understand many of the gun lobby's arguments, but I do understand the power of well-funded and well-orchestrated messaging. We're being manipulated, and whether you lean to the left or the right, we're all victims of it.

We need to quit waiting for Congress and the NRA to figure this out. It will not happen.

We can argue that people can wield terror with elements other than guns. That's true.

We can argue on both sides that trying to regulate anything is complicated, concerning and ambiguous. It is.

We can condescendingly dismiss arguments of gun owners, writing them off as unfeeling, uneducated rednecks, but we know that isn't true.

We can allow arguments to veer into the ridiculous and say, "What's next? Do we regulate Twinkies because people are fat?" - because that's not the same thing, and we know it.

We can wring hands and pray and create memes on social media and post articles about heroes who rescued the injured for months. It may make us feel better - until something happens again. It will happen again.

We can do nothing because of all of that.

Or maybe we could just try to have a conversation. That conversation may lead to some interesting solutions. Those interesting solutions could lead to common-sense grassroots movements that elected officials and powerful lobbyists may eventually need to pay attention to.

That perspective may be Pollyanna. But after seeing the footage and photos of panic and carnage; after watching interviews with grieving and distraught family members and victims; after hearing "it's just the way it is" time and again; after thinking, "I'm not a gun person, so I don't really have any skin in this game," but then considering that it may be my child or family member or friend who is killed or injured the next time this happens ...

I'm willing to just try. Are you?