Doesn't the firearms community care about the victims of shooting rampages and other violence involving firearms?

When members of the firearms community try to defend their rights, their opponents often try to portray them as selfish and unsympathetic by asking this question. Even asking this, however, is extremely offensive. It implies that somehow we are less than human. In doing so, it is alarmingly similar to racists' references to those they denigrate as subhuman. Ironically, when a crime involving the use of a firearm is committed, anti-gun groups are quick to say that love is the answer, to proclaim that they will not give in to hate, and to ask that all refrain from blaming any racial, ethnic or religious group a villain may have belonged to. But then they immediately make statements condemning the firearms community that would be called hate speech if made with respect to any other group, and, taking advantage of the raw emotions prevailing in the aftermath of such tragedies, call for restrictions on the rights and freedoms of a community that had nothing to do with such heinous acts. Such calls are a very small step away from encouraging lynching. Indeed, in some respects they are worse, for they call for the power of the state to be brought to bear against the innocent, not just the anger of misguided members of the public. In this "through the looking glass" world of theirs, hate-mongers are held to be heroes, and hypocrisy is mistaken for sincerity and caring.

In fact, the firearms community cares about such incidents much more than the average citizen, and undoubtedly more than anti-gun activists. Why?

First, while it may surprise the hate-mangers of the anti-firearms movement, firearms owners do sympathize with the suffering of those affected. We are not immune to human emotion. "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" How can these activists know what we are feeling when they are so completely dismissive of us? Is not any normal person moved when they see grieving family members and friends in tears? The issue is not a lack of caring, but a difference in the assessment of what is need to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies.

Second, we know that regardless of the facts there will almost immediately be calls for measures that will affect target us, our freedoms and our property. In this our reaction is similar to that of law-abiding Canadian or American Moslems who cringe when it turns out that a criminal turns out to profess an allegiance to some twisted version of their religion, as they anticipate the prejudices that will be awakened and turned against them.

Third, such incidents are more frustrating for firearms owners than for the average citizen because we have seen time and again that the measures that we have proposed that would actually make society safer are rejected because they are not politically palatable. Instead, it is easier to score political points by enacting useless or even counter-productive measures targeting us than to commit to the fiscal costs of measures that would deal with the underlying causes of crime, and to pay the political price of laying blame where it belongs, squarely on the “progressive” politicians who are afraid to give offense to any group they feel can be swung to their side, and the leaders of such groups.

Anti-gun zealots often decry members of the firearms community as “angry” in their reactions to proposals for unfair restrictions on their freedoms. Why shouldn’t we be angry? Would not the members of any other community so unjustly targeted be entitled to a little anger? Any other innocent group's anger at being targeted would elicit a sympathetic rather than condemnatory reaction. But we as gun owners must resist expressions of anger, for this plays into the hands of those who seek to destroy our community. I know this is not easy, for I feel my temperature rise as much as anyone when we are unjustly attacked. But I have learned through years of personal and professional experience that solving problems requires forgoing the instant gratification of emotional outbursts in favour of making progress towards higher goals. And there can be no higher goal than ensuring everyone enjoys the greatest degree of freedom, fairness and safety possible.

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