I know little of guns, and I struggle to understand the intense attachment of many Americans to owning multiple powerful weapons. I am hurt and frustrated that gun owners as a group, that the NRA, is so unwilling to sit down at the table and have a rational discussion of what they could do or could support that would reduce the potential for mass shootings, especially at schools. I do have this sense of their core argument: “We can’t agree to any restriction on our absolute right to own any kind of firearm because that would put us on the ‘slippery slope’ towards an eventual and total ban.”

We hear the “slippery slope” argument in other spheres of our civic life. In the area of free speech, we can’t look at regulating or banning pornography (regardless of how it exploits women), because it would put us on the “slippery slope” leading to government censorship of all kinds. People who argue against too much domestic surveillance by the government (and I’m not crazy about it myself) fear an ultimate loss of their right to privacy — without seeming to recognize the authentic dangers of terrorism on our own soil.

Frankly, I don’t buy this logic. I believe we should have the moral courage, and the willingness to work together, to do the right and sensible thing, to dig in on that slippery slope, to forge the kind of consensus that would guard against further, incremental erosion of cherished rights. There is no good or logical reason why we can’t come together around a few basic ideas to reduce the frequency and lethality of mass shootings:

Mental health screening and intervention: People with mental health issues should not be stigmatized in the search for solutions. However, it is right and reasonable that we be able to, for the common good, flag people with potentially problematic behavior and reduce or eliminate the chances that they will be in possession of powerful firearms.

Background checks: These should be universal, without exceptions or loopholes, broadly coordinated between local, state and federal agencies, and be adequately funded. The goal should be to flag potential gun buyers for mental health issues, domestic violence, multiple and/or aggravated felonies involving assaults on others or extremist or violent ideologies.

Bump stocks: These should be outlawed.

Schools: For numerous reasons, don’t arm teachers! Local and state agencies must continue taking defensive measures and retrofitting school buildings. A federal task, broadly representative of stakeholders and experts, should be convened. We need a national debriefing on school vulnerability, looking hard and honestly at these tragic events, drawing on law enforcement, education and mental health professionals, formulating realistic strategies that can be broadly applied.

Some say they maintain personal arsenals because they fear the potential abuses of a tyrannical government and are determined to protect home and hearth from that tyranny. This perfectly expresses how out of balance we are on the gun issue. I am not here to challenge or disparage these views or the people that hold them. The problem is that their fear, which borders on paranoia, and their rigid, uncompromising exercise of a right to bear arms as a balm to that fear, is holding hostage my right to life and safety — and the right to life and safety of millions of people across this country.

It’s not that I have blind faith in the government. What I do have faith in is our ability to work together, to make government work for all of us as it should, whether we are gun-toters or anti-gun voters — or simply one of many dazed and horrified by mass slaughter occurring just down the street.

— Jeffrey Richardson lives in Bend.