MEADOR: Guns are here to stay, but proper enforcement should be, too

In 1982 Kennesaw, Ga., passed a law requiring every head-of-house to own a gun. The following year, upon realizing the many problems with such a flat and simplistic law, they nuanced it to exclude conscientious objectors, convicted felons, physically or mentally disabled individuals, and people from several other groups that for one reason or another didn't need guns in their houses.

Since that time, several studies have suggested that Kennesaw is a safer place, much to the chagrin of well-intentioned gun-control advocates. The claims of some gun-rights advocates are likely exaggerated: One activist reports an 89 percent drop in burglaries despite the fact that other studies have suggested the burglary rate is relatively the same as it's always been.

The truth of the matter is probably some place between these two extremes: Is Kennesaw a Mayberryesque paradise where it's always sunny with a high of 75 and everyone greets each other with a hearty "Howdy, neighbor!?" Probably not. But it does have a lower crime rate than any of its neighboring communities.

In other words, something has made Kennesaw safer than its surrounding communities. And while it's simplistic to attribute it entirely to guns, it's equally simplistic to completely dismiss guns as a contributing factor.

Before I continue, let's be clear: I'm not a certified member of the National Rifle Association, or NRA, and I wouldn't do well in Kennesaw. I'd make some comment about how the Confederate flag is the American equivalent to the swastika and things would just go downhill from there. And while some people recoil when firing a gun, I recoil at the thought of firing one.

I'm about as close to pacifism as one can be without fully embracing it. Put simply, I'm not Charlton Heston, and I don't think owning a gun is a foolproof way of protecting myself or my loved ones.

But I don't think gun control makes us much safer either. And I do think our nation's history is such that we'll never be free of guns. For those reasons, I applaud this summer's Supreme Court decision to strike down the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C.

It's a reluctant applause, to be sure. I take no pleasure in the idea of my neighbor owning a gun and even less in the idea of the person sitting next to me in the union carrying one under their jacket - should the ban on University of Nebraska-Lincoln's campus ever be lifted. But given American history, I think it might be the best we can do.

We're a nation that has carved out our existence on the frontier. From the mid-18th century, explorations of Kentucky and Tennessee to the late 19th century settling of the Great Plains, we've always been a nation that found ourselves by exploring the unknown. But of course, the American frontier was not a safe place. Life on the frontier necessitated the use of guns to protect one's family and advance one's interest.

Regardless of how we might feel today about our constant expansion west and appalling treatment of the American Indians who lived there before us, we cannot deny the historical fact that our nation's story was written on the endless prairies of the Midwest and in the currents of the Mississippi.

In fact, the frontier was so central to our nation's understanding of itself that in the 1890s, as the western frontier was disappearing beneath rapidly growing cities and increased Americanization, there was widespread fear that America couldn't continue to be itself if we weren't living on the frontier.

This thinking in part led to the taking of Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War and it continued to define the American psyche into the 1960s when JFK said, "We stand today on the edge of a new frontier: the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats." If you listen closely, you hear similar rhetoric coming from Sen. Barack Obama today.

One-hundred years after the last of the American West was taken this mind-set continues to define American identity. And, for better or worse, central to living on the frontier is the notion of protecting your own keep by whatever means possible. And more often than not those means are a gun. It might not be ideal, but it's the reality of our nation's history and identity.

Where does that leave us? We should start with where we can all agree: Incidents of gun violence are not desirable. All of us, liberal or conservative, can agree that we'd like to see fewer news reports of gun-related violence.

The question, then, is "How do we reduce that number?" If you talk to many liberals, they'll argue (rather simplistically) that because gun-related violence requires a gun, we should just get rid of guns. Conservatives respond with the equally simplistic, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

Both these answers are problematic, though I think the conservative one is closer to the truth. To put tighter restriction on gun ownership won't solve the problem. And if our goal is ultimately to get rid of all the handguns in the U.S., we'll never arrive at that goal. You can't rewrite 250 years of history. Guns are here. And they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

However, as a corrective to conservative excesses, we desperately need to implement existing restrictions on gun ownership. All gun owners ought to go through lengthy training and should keep their guns locked up and unloaded, with the safeties on and the ammo stored in a different part of the house. If an individual wishes to carry a concealed weapon, there should be extensive training for that as well. An ideal model would be a place like Switzerland, in which most homes have a gun and yet incidents of gun-violence are almost unheard of.

I'm afraid this is the best we can do. It might be equally disagreeable to both Michael Moore and Mark Matthews, the mayor of Kennesaw. But as Churchill said about democracy, it's the worst option out there. But unfortunately, it's still better than all the others.

Jake meador is a junior english major. Reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com