I understand your anger and disappointment.

I hope you understand that this is something we have to work out for ourselves.

For every troubled person with a gun, there are thousands and thousands of gun owners in the US who who never use them for anything more threatening than target shooting or game hunting. We also have, in the ten amendments that comprise our Bill of Rights, a specific mention of the right to bear arms. It's the second one; the consensus opinion on the Bill of Rights is that the Founders put them in order of importance. So, yes, as we are a nation of laws rather than a nation with other commonalities, it really does have to do with American culture.

I understand that Australia rounded up all its legally owned weapons in, I think, 1996. Your country, your choice. You can rest easy knowing that any gun in private hands in Australia is owned illegally.

Here, the debate about confiscation centers not only on the Second, but also around the problem of criminals. If a law requiring confiscation is passed and upheld in the inevitable court challenges, only people who obey the law will comply. The criminals will still have their guns, and, as criminals, will feel no compunction about violating another law to keep them. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has ruled that no firearm control law can compel someone in illegal possession of a firearm to register it or surrender it, because such a law violates the citizen's right to avoid self-incrimination as guaranteed by the Fifth (Haynes v. United States). The citizen would have to admit having broken another law already to comply with that law, an unConstitutional burden on the individual.

Law-abiding gun owners are rightfully concerned about the government taking away their Second Amendment right to bear arms because someone else has used a gun to commit a crime. We still say that people are innocent until proven guilty here, even though in practice our justice system is imperfect. Gun owners are innocent of wrongdoing too.

Some are ill-educated on the use and storage of their weapons. Accidental shootings present more of a day to day problem, and need to be prosecuted more vigorously.

We have a ton of laws governing the manufacture, importing, sale, transfer, possession and use of firearms in the United States. They are not vigorously and consistently enforced. Before taking things away from people who haven't done anything, it would be a good idea to try enforcing the laws we have already.

Given all this, it's not unreasonable to talk about how to remedy the root cause of crimes such as the ones committed at VT. We could confiscate the tools we can find, but we would not get them all, and the cause lies with the criminal anyway. In cases like this, in which we're talking about a mentally disturbed individual, mental illness is a component. Better to deal with that, and thereby reduce not only the gun multiple murders, but the ballpeen hammer multiple murders, and the stabbing multiple murders, and the smothering and drowning multiple murders as well.

Lee and I don't get along on most issues, and it's true, my family doesn't own over 20 guns. We only own 10, including 3 handguns, and are discussing the acquisition of a shotgun, for skeet shooting. Probably not, though: not enough time to devote to the sport to make the investment worthwhile.

We own our guns for sport, and for historical interest, which I will explain if you care. We don't pretend we have them for personal protection. My daughters are well aware that the best protection against assault and kidnapping is to look like trouble, because creeps look for easy targets. If you're carrying a concealed weapon, you don't look like the trouble you really are. My girls travel with friends, or if they have to walk alone, they stick to well-lit streets, don't talk on the phone while walking (thus looking more alert to their surroundings), and carry full-sized umbrellas, solid walking sticks, or (memorably), a substantial chair leg. A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of lead.