The majority of Americans favor more gun control, but not the majority of Mainers. At least not at last head count by way of 2016’s Ballot Question 3, which simply wanted to widen background checks to all gun purchases. Over 27,000 Maine voters tipped the scales to defeat the measure.

That was then and this is now. A now where America’s widespread homegrown terrorism won’t necessarily stop at our state boarder because of branding boasting “The Way Life Should Be.” Maybe Maine should put that vote to the test again. Maybe this time it can be presented not as anti-gun legislation but as a way to assure that Maine’s tradition of responsible gun ownership never falls victim to a catastrophic misuse of a gun’s capability for horrific harm.

Rampant gun violence has become a never healing divisive wound infecting all of American life. Its persistence has steadfastly brought about a systemic undermining of America’s core belief in the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those unalienable rights are now routinely taken away from innocent victims killed or irreparably injured by the more and more expected outcome of letting a very arguable interpretation of the 2nd Amendment be way too liberally exercised.

This is no way for a freedom-loving self-governing republic to conduct itself.

Seventy percent of Americans want plainly necessary controls on gun ownership. That majority crosses party lines. Yet, no matter how mind-numbing and heartwrenching the tragedies that repeatedly take place become, nothing changes.

Fear rules.

Rather than exhibiting leadership, the majority of our politicians submit to the will of extremists and their electoral leverage. Rather than exhibiting a backbone and demanding something beyond empty rhetoric, the electorate cowardly accepts their government’s fait accompli that nothing can be done.

So it goes, again and again and again. So many tragedies that most don’t even receive the attention given a Columbine or a Sandy Hook. So many that one can’t keep count.

Recite the names of all the mass shootings that were sworn never to be forgotten. Name even ten.

Stoneman Douglas High School. 17 dead. This latest horror will likely be again eclipsed by yet another “inexplicable” act of mayhem facilitated by what is now being rightly called “weapons of war.”

Not “guns,” but “weapons of war.” Maybe that finally acknowledged description will indelibly mark this latest absurd line in the sand over 2nd Amendment interpretation.

Maybe this tragedy will finally be a long sought turning point towards a sane national policy on gun ownership.

The most inane argument remains that guns are just one of supposedly countless ways of successfully carrying out mass murder. Guns do not beget violence, and there’s no complicity by the bottom line interest of gun manufacturers who make lethality a prime selling point. Gun violence is rather a matter of unrelated mental illness. The chosen manner of lethal force has nothing to do with a gun’s specific engineering to kill with maximum efficiency.

Rationalizations that guns themselves have nothing to do with acts of violence are specious at best. The etymology of the word “gun” is: “Gunne. An engine of war that throws rocks, arrows or other missiles from a tube by the force of explosive powder or other substance.” Guns were invented for violent conflict, not hunting or recreational amusements.

To actually argue that no one blames the planes used on 911 or the truck carrying the explosives in Oklahoma City for causing such mayhem is to ignore the obvious difference that planes and trucks were never designed to facilitate lethal harm. Neither were box-cutters. And, exactly what skill level of target shooting is it to use a semi or fully automatic firearm? Why not a grenade launcher? How many schoolchildren have been killed by the misuse of coin or stamp collections?

Most Americans understand the difference between apples and oranges, and when the indefensible should stop being defended.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Then people predictably or knowingly intent on violence towards innocent people shouldn’t have the right to bear arms.

Owning weapons of war shouldn’t be a debatable right of unregulated peaceful citizens.

Fear shouldn’t be allowed to rule America. A majority of responsible gun owners shouldn’t be cowed by a minority of well financed extremists. The NRA needs to receive a severe warning shot by pro-gun citizens that have finally had enough of its incessant boogeyman fear-mongering.

America must stop being immobilized by fear. We must adopt the necessary bravery to end the bullying of the extreme right. Putting belief in unfettered gun rights above the lives of innocent children is pretty darn close to my definition of insanity. No background check needed there to disqualify gun ownership due to mental incompetency.

Adults need to act like such. We must stop turning matters of life and death into an irresponsibly petulant game of ideological take-no-prisoner warfare where collateral damage is being borne by those we are so heavily armed to protect.

And, let’s take a very long hard look at our cultural underpinning that venerates violent resolution as the definition of manhood.

Gary Anderson lives in Bath.