Rule One: You may NO LONGER claim that shooters suffer from mental illness and then propose steps that are designed to appeal to rational thinkers. That is political chicanery at its most despicable. For example, today Mr. Trump–who since the shootings at Parkland High School on February 14, 2018, has maintained that the root problem there was mental illness, not guns–put forward today the suggestion of arming teachers in schools, explaining that would-be shooters would be rationally deterred if they knew that teachers in those schools might be armed. Trump declared, “These people [shooters] are cowards. They’re not going to walk into a school if 20% of the teachers have guns–it may be 10% or may be 40%.” And he further underscored that giving teachers guns, training, and bonuses (paid for by whom?) will be a deterrent to shooters, preferable to the (in his opinion) derisible idea of gun-free zones.

No: you can’t say “It’s about mental health and not guns” as a way to sidetrack discussions about controlling gun access and THEN suggest more guns on the premise that more guns will make the mentally ill “think twice”! No. No. No. This is not public service, but service to other concerns.

Rule Two:  You have to identify specific gun laws if you reference them in conversations. Many reasonable-sounding people are suggesting that, instead of creating new laws involving gun control, let’s simply enforce the many laws that are already on the books. Now, I am old enough to remember this same argument used against the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have barred all discrimination based on gender, and in my home state of Pennsylvania, more than 300 laws had to be changed or scrapped when the Legislature passed its own non-discrimination statute regarding gender.

So if you are one of those saying, “We already have the laws,” then SHOW ME THE LAWS. Do NOT assume that laws are already in place and are not being enforced. And don’t just deftly jump to the other foot and say, “Well, laws only deter the law-abiding anyhow” unless you are ready to abolish all laws based on your argument.

IF we can agree to these two rules going forward, then we can begin a serious dialogue about how best to protect our children and each other: surely a discussion worthy of our time and energy.