I had to see this article in the Toronto Star a couple of times before its impact finally sunk in (and thanks to Kevin for putting the right emphasis in his post to get me to RTWT). Follow the link, and don't just read the top two or three or five or even seven paragraphs like I did at first. Read it all the way to the bottom.

The problem I've had with a lot of the gun control vs gun rights debates is that, all too often, the positions are, respectively, "ban all the guns" and "lock up all the criminals." Even if we all wanted to, we can't get rid of all the guns. Not only is it impossible, it's not even desirable. And not to be contentious, but if you think it is desirable, you're not thinking it through.

But then there are the guys on my side of the argument who say that we need to lock up the criminals instead of letting them stay free, or sending them to prison with short sentences. They need to be locked up long enough that they won't be able to cause problems with guns. This argument has always bothered me. While I agree with it in principle, we've got a lot of people in prison in this country. Sure, a significant part of that is because we lock up a lot of folks for a long time for relatively trivial offenses. It just seems to me that just segregating the evildoers after they've done their evil isn't the optimum approach. Yeah, we need to lock 'em up after they've committed their violent crimes, but...isn't there something more we could do?

And here I find it, in that Star article. It seems to me that limiting the number of people who commit violent crimes in the first place should also be one of our goals here. Y'know, so there aren't so many folks to charge, prosecute, convict and imprison to begin with. Yeah, throw the book at 'em after they commit violent crimes. Yeah, those of us who wish to defend ourselves and our loved ones (and even just nearby bystanders) should always and forever have the unimpeded right to do so as armed citizens. But maybe there's something else we can do to address the problem. It sounds like The Boston Gun Project, Cincinnati's Initiative to Reduce Violence and now Chicago's Project Safe Neighborhoods can be a part of the solution.