Let’s just get this out of the way right at the top, I am not anti-gun, I am anti-Dumb.

I am from Upstate New York where the first day of hunting season was practically a religious holiday that meant I was just about the only one in school.

Everyone had guns. But it wasn’t really that big a deal because where I grew up, you could open your back door, shoot as big a gun as you wanted off the porch and not hit anything except trees and potentially a very confused squirrel.

I have friends who hunt, friends who sport shoot and friends who just collect guns like they are Star Wars toys. All of them are good people. All of them are the type of people whom you really probably don’t mind owning guns.

And all of them would probably be adversely affected by any new legislation that might be developed.

That said, I also grew up in a place where we played lawn darts, though we can no longer do that because in 1987 a little girl was killed and her father led a crusade to get the 50-year-old toys banned. So despite the fact that I have never once killed or injured anyone during a game of lawn darts, I can no longer play.

Because sometimes living in a society means that even those of us who play responsibly have to put our heads down on the desk when the class shows it can no longer behave itself.

Don’t believe me? Try walking through Sea-Tac without taking your belt and shoes off.

Also, to be clear, I offer no solutions. I have ideas, obviously, suggestions certainly, but today I am not putting anything forward, simply making a plea to have a discussion.

Because we really have not had one about guns in this country in decades. And for the record, the last 10 years or so have been pretty violent.

Last week, following yet another mass public shooting, this one at a community college in rural Oregon, Rolling Stone published a statistic that said in the first 174 days of the year, there were 164 mass shootings, defined as four or more people, gunman not included, who were shot.

So let’s do it, please. Let’s have the discussion. Let’s try to be adults.

So the absolute first thing we have to get out of the way is the ridiculous notion that nothing can be done. That’s total BS. And it’s total BS put forth by a propaganda machine run by the people who make and make money off of selling guns.

OF COURSE they want you to think there’s nothing you can do. The Dumber and more confused – and scared – they keep us, the more money they get to make.

I choose today’s Frank Shiers Jr. comic for a reason. The reason is this: I completely and totally disagree with it. It’s Dumb. It’s willfully ignorant and perpetuates that ignorance.

In an email that accompanied it, Mr. Shiers explained that all 14 of the guns the Oregon domestic terrorist (I call it like I see it; this dude was making a point…) were legally purchased and therefore “there isn’t an existing gun control law or future ‘common sense’ law that could be created to catch him before the tragedy.”

Now, I really enjoy Mr. Shiers’ contributions to our paper. Though I don’t always agree with him, I sometimes do and I often enjoy his take either way.

That said, this is just Dumb. And it’s Dumb because of the conclusion he draws: No existing laws worked, therefore no future laws could work.

Huh? That doesn’t even make sense.

In the comic, Shiers implies that the only thing we could do if we want to change anything or make any laws would be to throw out the Second Amendment.

In other words: *Shrug* What can you do? Kids are gonna die. Deal with it. Praise God and pass the ammunition.

That’s Ridiculous; Ridiculous, defeatist and just plain Dumb.

Now, again, I am not going to offer any solutions here. This is a not a column about background checks or wait times or assault weapons bans or anything.

This is simply about the fact that we CAN do something if we want, if we can muster the political will to stand up and say “let’s try and prevent kids from getting shot” to an organization of only 5 million members that, according to opensecrets.org, spent more than $30 million in the 2014 election cycle alone.

Because here’s the truth about the Second Amendment: it is not sacrosanct, no matter what the NRA wants you to believe. It’s also not as hard-and-fast as they want you to believe.

For example, the second and third words of the actual text are “well-regulated,” which a rational person would assume means you could, well, regulate the matter. But more importantly, the thing that is protected is the right to “keep and bear arms,” not “guns,” but “arms.”

And “arms” includes things like tanks, F-35s and nuclear missiles, all of which we have already decided are too dangerous for the civilian population and have BANNED. So look at that, we 100 percent can and do ban arms every single day in this country.

Which means, that it’s not a question of “can we?” but “which SHOULD we?” and that’s a different and important discussion. Maybe the answer we come to as a society is, in fact “none.” I mean, I doubt it, but let’s at least have the conversation.

Let’s stop pretending there’s nothing we can do. Let’s stop pretending that not doing anything isn’t politicizing this. And let’s stop pretending the NRA isn’t just liars with deep-enough pockets to confuse decent people. Because even 87 percent of gun owners (according to a New York Times story) support legislation that the NRA is spending millions of dollars to prevent (expanded background checks, for example).

I mean, if we can pull together as a nation to stop the scourge of lawn-dart-related injuries and deaths, surely we can do something about the literally daily threat of a mass shooting somewhere in the country.

Let me close here with a quote from a letter from President Ronald Reagan, who not only supported the Brady Bill in 1991, but in 1994 sent this in support of the 1994 assault-weapons ban that the Republican Congress let expire in 2004:

“While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals.”

Again, I am not saying if a ban is the right thing either way, just that even Reagan was for trying something.

Maybe it’s because he was president when the lawn-dart ban went into effect and he saw how well that worked. Maybe not. Either way, let’s stop pretending there’s nothing we can do.