In the War Between the Left and the Right, I Root for the Militantly Moderate

By Tom Hagy

Response New York Times Op-Ed 
"Why Gun Culture Is So Strong in Rural America"
By Robert Leonard, March 16, 2018

In his piece, Mr. Leonard suggested urban liberals need to better understand rural conservatives when it comes to guns. He posits that the latter believe any gun control is bad, while liberals want to abolish the Second Amendment. I won't comment on the idea that it is up to urban liberals to better understand rural conservatives. Well, guess I just did. I would rather see everyone everywhere try to look beyond their noses and try to understand everyone else everywhere else. But I also would like a movie star's smile. I do not.

While I probably end up in the same place as Mr. Leonard when it comes to firearms, the larger problem on display in his piece is that too much of the country no longer values compromise or listening. Too many sit in the comfort of their bubbles yacking away without looking into the eyes of the person they are debating, choosing the intellectual laziness that brings them to labeling "others" as untamed warriors from another almost certainly cannibalistic tribe. Mr. Leonard rightly points out that the sides most often can't fathom that to some extent they are both right and both wrong. Somehow admitting you're wrong -- or unshackling yourself from the perceived safety of your one-dimensional conclusions -- is like admitting that, when no one is looking, you kick puppies.

I have lived in both universes -- rural and urban -- and grew up with guns, too. I too, as a young man, waged war on diminutive forest creatures. I see the middle path so clearly I DO struggle to understand those who refuse to even let themselves think about it. A problem with our current discourse has been it's "Live Free with Guns or Die" versus "Abolish the Second Amendment." And nothing happens.

That's changing.

Finally.

From what I can see the kids -- fed up from our inaction and the deaths of 17 kids and adults in Parkland, Fla. -- are taking over this debate. What they want is militantly moderate. And that's what we need more than anything. For my money, I love compromise. It's the surest way that everyone gets to be just a little miserable. Just how it should be. Rooting for the kids. They are on the right path, and something tells me they intend to stay on it.