The gun control debate is over.

It should have been over after Columbine. It should have been over after the 31 school shootings since Columbine.

But now, all the arguments in support of unfettered, unregulated gun access are morally unsustainable.

On Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., those tired, illogical arguments lost all their power. The National Rifle Association and the people who think that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” are wrong.

The slippery slope argument — as in, “If they ban certain types of semi-automaticweapons, or high-capacity clips, or assault rifles, next thing they’ll do is take all our guns away” — is wrong.

Also wrong, the “let’s ban all cars because they kill people too” argument. That one has always been almost hilariously wrong. It doesn’t apply. It never has. Cars, when properly used, don’t kill people. Guns, when properly used, do.

Anyone who tells you it’s about personal responsibility and not about unrestricted gun ownership is wrong. Any politician who takes money from the NRA, or passes legislation to allow people to carry guns in schools, or workplaces, or courthouses, or national parks, or public buildings, or across state lines, is wrong, the same way a person who thinks the Earth is flat is wrong.

Own as many muskets as you want, but your right to own as many modern, high-capacity weapons as you want stops at the schoolhouse door. The graves of the Newtown first-graders render the arguments for unrestricted, unregulated gun ownership null and void.

The fact that most of the weapons, ammunition and body armor used in mass shootings in the United States are bought legally means that we need to change the laws to make these purchases illegal.

It’s easier to buy a gun than it is to adopt a pet.

Yes, I know. The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to own a pet. But neither does it guarantee the right to buy 4,000 rounds of ammunition from a website.

Want a rifle for hunting? Fine. One handgun to keep in your home for self-defense? Also fine. No one is arguing against that. But that should be the limit.

We need to reinstate the assault-weapons ban, to institute national background checks and cooling-off periods, to close the loopholes that allow unregulated purchases at gun shows, to make illegal the purchase and possession of body armor, armor-piercing bullets and high-capacity clips, and to limit the type and number of weapons that can be sold via the Internet.

Let’s also force gun manufacturers to install trigger locks on all their weapons. Let’s microstamp shell casings to make it easier for police to track weapons used in crimes. No lawabiding gun owner should have any problem with this.

I already see and hear the tired old comments on talk shows and in social media. “Gun control won’t change anything,” the chatter goes. Or, “You’ll never get rid of evil.” Or, “If someone really wants to hurt someone else, they’ll find a way.”

Maybe they will. But the way should be a lot harder than it is now.

No one believes that more gun regulation will erase evil from the world. But it can prevent evil and mentally unstable people from getting their hands on the mass-killing machines that our modern weapons have become.

Yes, we need more and better access to mental health care. Yes, we need to find a way to create a more peaceful society by limiting the consumption of violence we find in our media and our children’s video games. We need to understand why we humans are so obsessed with guns. We need to understand why, as I read in a recent news story, we think shooting a machine gun is “cool.”

But until that happens, let’s do what we can right now.

There is no tomorrow. We can’t demand justice from the cowards who commit these heinous acts, because they are usually too quick to end their own lives. But we can demand that our leaders treat gun violence like the overwhelming public health crisis it is.

The gun control debate is over. The only debate happening now is in the consciences of our feeble politicians as they weigh whether or not they can get reelected if they finally take a stand.

MICHAEL TUCKER is a writer who lives in Bath.