Five years ago, I wrote in a letter to The Times Record about the ongoing epidemic of gun deaths in this country. Since that time, more than 150,000 more Americans have died due to gun violence. That is almost three times the number of American deaths during the Vietnam War, and more than 50 times the number of Americans who died on Sept. 11, 2001. In the time that has passed since my last letter, my anger has turned to sadness and frustration at our society’s inability, and our politicians’ unwillingness, to deal with the problem.

Now, in the wake of the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colo., at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., in College Station, Texas, and most recently, in LaPlace, La., where two sheriff ’s deputies were killed and two others seriously wounded in an apparent ambush, it is more true than ever that people on both sides of the gun control debate are shouting at each other across an ever-widening chasm.

People on the anti-gun control side, with the leadership of the National Rifle Association leading the charge, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees them an absolute right to own as many guns as they want, including armor-piercing bullets, high-capacity clips and semi-automatic assault weapons, and that any government efforts to regulate such weapons amount to an infringement of their rights under the Constitution.

Those on the gun control side, like myself, believe that reasonable limits on gun purchases, the banning of certain types of weapons, efficient national background checks, and the implementation of certain types of technology, like trigger locks and microstamping of shell casings (so that police can track which gun a bullet was fired from) in no way block the rights of law-abiding citizens to buy guns.

As I watch, read, and listen to the national and local debate surrounding this issue, two flaws in the anti-gun control side come to mind. The first is the belief that the Constitution affords lawmakers no right to legislate gun purchases. In this view, any attempt by lawmakers to regulate gun purchases in the ways I listed above amounts to a de facto ban.

The Second Amendment uses the word “arms.” I would ask those who hold this view what they believe “arms” to mean. In the time of the founders, “arms” meant a single shot pistol or rifle that had to be handloaded after each firing. Now, arms can mean anything from a six-shot revolver to a nuclear weapon.

Should private citizens be allowed to bear machine guns, missile launchers, or nuclear weapons? If you are anti-gun control, but would rather not contemplate your irritable neighbor possessing a nuclear bomb, then you must believe that some types of arms can and should be regulated.

The other flawed argument for unchecked gun purchases is the erroneous belief that the founders intended the Second Amendment to be a means for citizens to arm themselves and, in cases of possible tyranny, to rise up and fight against their own government.

A letter to the editor in a newspaper I read recently suggested that gun ownership makes one a citizen and not a subject. In this view, the Second Amendment was written to limit the ability of the government to impose tyranny on an armed populace. I think this is a manifestation of current antigovernment hysteria rather than a statement of fact, since nowhere in the language of the Second Amendment can this sentiment be found.

Again, during the time the Constitution was written the country had no standing army. The “well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state” says to me that the Second Amendment is intended as a means to protect us from outside aggression against the sovereignty of the United States, and not as a means for the violent overthrow of our own government. Didn’t we fight the British so that we could establish a form of government whereby it wouldn’t be necessary to fight amongst ourselves? When we want to change the government in this country, we don’t fight. We vote.

Just as the First Amendment does not give someone the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, the Second Amendment does not confer unchecked rights to own as many guns and as much ammunition as you can get your hands on. An absolutist view of the Second Amendment also denies a basic understanding of human nature. Sometimes people get angry, very angry, and act violently during these moments. It’s too easy to say that every shooter is “crazy.”

That’s an intellectually lazy way to let us all off the hook when it comes to enacting reasonable gun laws. Was the alleged shooter in Aurora really “crazy” if he planned his crime months in advance? And let’s remember that the he bought all of his weapons legally, with no way for the police to know that he was building a one-man arsenal.

I write this not as a constitutional scholar, but as a father of two children. As the son of a retired police officer, perhaps I am biased. I would rather live in a world where guns had never been invented. I will never own a gun because I don’t want the spectre of death to be anywhere near my family or myself. I don’t think more guns leads to a safer society. However, I understand the political reality we all live in. The story of our country is a 230-year-old ongoing conversation.

I realize that no amount of Facebook posts or angry Tweets will solve this problem. We need to continue the dialogue about this issue, even if politicians on both sides of the aisle would rather remain silent. No doubt criminals will always be a part of our society, but mass shootings need not be. We all deserve to live in peace.

MICHAEL TUCKER lives in Bath.