We're pleading to everyone's sense and sensibilities, we're pleading for common sense, which just doesn't seem to be all that common anymore. We're hoping that reasoning will outdo passion. We're hoping that our politicians will come to their collective senses and do the right thing for all Americans and for our future generations.

Our issue of course is with gun control. We know, firsthand, what these weapons are capable of. We know the agony of burying a child. We know the guilt you feel that somehow we didn't do enough to keep our son alive. We know the emptiness of missing our child. We know that it actually feels like we're missing a limb, we know that there's just something missing. We know our lives will never be the same. We have been dealing with our loss now for over nine years. We understand the anguish that just won't go away.

Why in heaven's name did we stay on the sidelines; why not share our grief and our tragedy as a warning to everyone that losing a child to senseless gun violence is indescribable? As the saying goes "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy." Jason Cherkis our reporter with the Huffington Post, someone whom I now consider a friend, opened that door for us. He gave us that avenue to speak out, to share our tragedy in the hopes that we could maybe cool down the debate on gun control and bring it to a point where common sense wins over passion.

The first thing we would recommend is quit calling it "gun control"; no one wants to feel that they are being controlled. Our choice would be "gun regulation." We need to regulate and mandate what we will tolerate on our streets, the types of weapons, the loading capacity of the clips and of course who's eligible to purchase them and where. We really need to think this through -- again, common sense must prevail. One thing that does concern us is tying mental health to gun regulation. We get this feeling that the people who could benefit from therapy will forgo seeking help for emotional issues if they think it will exempt them from ever purchasing a gun for self-protection.

We fully believe in our 2nd Amendment, We fully believe in most everyone's right to bear arms for self-protection; after all, it's even an Olympic event. But we also believe that the 2nd Amendment is taken way out of context, and that the intent of our forefathers was not to put automatic weapons on our streets, amongst our own citizens to use against one another. These weapons are nothing more than killing machines and, in the wrong hands, we think of them as weapons of mass destruction.

These weapons belong in the military not on our streets; at a minimum the users on the streets should meet Military Standard Qualifications to own and operate that type of a weapon. There should be strict standards of how all weapons are stored and cared for; every weapon should be sold with a trigger lock installed. Our son died at the hands of a coward. I couldn't imagine the pain and anguish I would have to endure if it had happen as a result of my own neglect or carelessness.

With all the controversy surrounding the 2nd Amendment, you'd think there is no other amendment, no other documents that exist. Well, the 2nd amendment is part of our Constitution, where the first three words are "We the People." It doesn't say "We the Politicians," or "We the Lobbyists," and it certainly doesn't say "We the NRA." It's time for "We the People" to take this country back from the self-interest groups, from those that advocate gun violence as a way of life and call it a "sport." It's time for "We the People" to use our voting voice and contact our senators and congresswomen and congressmen and tell them it's time to do what's right for all Americans.

Let's change the world's opinion of us as a warring nation to one of a freedom-loving, peace-loving, neighborly place to vacation or even to live -- that we truly are a democratic people. A place where we have a mutual respect for each other to live and let live, and to learn to have tolerance for one another. Life is way too short to go around killing each other.

You'd think that after our tragedy we would have boarded up our home, built a gun turret and assembled a vast cache of weapons for "self protection." But no, we choose not to live in fear for our lives from our neighbors. If we felt that kind of fear, we'd have to move away from here and move to, say, Canada; as Michael Moore points out, the per capita gun ownership is higher than that of the United States of America and their gun related deaths is minute compared to ours.

We believe in America and it's great people, just look how we came together after Sandy Hook, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine and countless others -- how we supported the victims and their families through their crisis. We will always remember them and keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

We have an opportunity to change our mindset. We can be proactive instead of reactive and plan ahead, when you see that we average upwards of 30,000 gun related deaths here in the United States of America every year. It's time for us to pull together as "We the People" and think about next year's 30,000 gun deaths and do something positive to try and break that trend. You never know if it could be your own life or that of someone you love that you're saving. God forbid that it happens to you because your whole life and perspective will change. Think of the victims' families that are left behind, to grieve, to struggle, to wonder what could have been and to wonder why their loved one had to die such a senseless death. A death that could have been prevented -- we need to enact common sense legislation.

~ Jenny, Bert Heyman and Family

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, is the cornerstone of our Declaration of Independence. When someone picks up a weapon and intentionally or accidentally kills someone, they are infringing on the rights of others. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

I'm often asked to give talks to burgeoning teachers -- young men and women who want to make a lasting impact on many future students' lives. Recently, I met with a group of students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to discuss how to manage realistic problems in the classroom and common pitfalls in the lives of teachers. Luckily, these students are getting a taste of the triumphs and the troubles of an educator through their internships in schools across the state. Below, I've shared some of the advice I extended to them regarding troubled students and assessing violence in an educational setting. The common denominator is prevention -- I cannot stress this enough. Prevention is so much more important than predicting risk. In the wake of recent school tragedies and a resonating fear in schools, these key tips are invaluable for both teachers and administrators alike, as well as for parents.

1. Inquire about gun access
When a student shows signs of aggression, begins to make threats to himself or others, or is involved in any other inflammatory episode, a teacher or administrator should always ask the student and his parents about access to weapons. As I'll get to more thoroughly in my second point, prevention is crucial. Knowing about weapons in the home could be the difference between prevention and a suicide or other horrific outcomes.

It's also important to go over the school's weapons policy with kids. A fair number of kids don't realize what constitutes a weapon. For instance, I knew of a student who was expelled for having a small Swiss Army Knife on his keychain. These things happen all the time, unfortunately. Another student was en route to a school dance from his after school job, and had brought his box cutter, required for work. This incident required a huge negotiation to prevent his expulsion. Going over the weapons policy with kids should be a routine procedure.

2. Be proactive; think prevention
Like I've stated, prevention is more important than predicting risk. If a student gets a bad grade in his English class and says, "Someone's going to pay for this," it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone has to make sure that he gets additional support and if he fails that they are quick to monitor him for safety.

3. Take concern from others seriously
One of the biggest red flags for a student is when other people, particularly peers, step forward with concerns about the student's potential for violence. I knew of a case where a young man's worried ex-girlfriend presented a despairing email to a school administrator, who then showed it to me. The letter was so despondent that I initiated immediate outreach. We arranged an emergency evaluation. A police officer and a mental health clinician showed up at the young man's house, and the boy admitted that he'd been considering suicide for days. The ex-girlfriend's concern was crucial to mobilizing a life-saving inquiry. Concern from peers should always be taken seriously.

4. Share responsibility
A teacher is equipped with a huge network of support, and yet it's so easy to fall victim to a student's seductive language, i.e., "You are the only one that I can trust this with! I hate everybody else!" Teachers may think they're impervious to this kind of talk, but it can be very flattering to be the chosen confidant. I always tell teachers to share the responsibility. If they're waking up in the middle of the night thinking about their students' problems, talking to someone about this is critical. And if teachers are never waking up in the middle of the night, that's something to think about as well -- I am just as concerned about someone who doesn't have a radar for worry and seems nonchalant. Some teachers fret all the time, and others have the "nothing's going to happen on my watch" view of things. There's a fine balance of sharing responsibility.

5. Know your threat levels
Young students can be unpredictable as they come into their own and learn to manage their emotions. So, they often say outrageous things, and while most of it's harmless, sometimes it can warrant further action. When a student says, "I'm going to get you" in the heat of the moment, but later, after some reflection and teacher follow-up, expresses remorse or apologizes, that's called a transient threat. Conversely, a substantive threat is when there's potential injury to others, like a student who says "When I come back here, I'll have a gun," or who has shown some follow-through on a plan about making a bomb. Teachers must frequently make judgment calls on this kind of language, and in this era of heightened vigilance, it is key to have a process in place to help teachers evaluate a threat. The majority of threats are not substantive and it is key to have a process in place to evaluate threats so that teachers feel safe and students can learn.

WASHINGTON -- The shell casings were discovered on the Haven Avenue overpass for Interstate-210 West heading toward Los Angeles. It was dark, but the cops had no trouble finding the brushed aluminum-colored 9 mm husks. Police drew uneven moats of blue or white chalk around the casings and marked each one with a tiny yellow evidence cone. Each cone had a number. There were 48 casings.

The crime scene photos, taken at a distance, show the pinky-sized casings lying zig-zagged in clusters, spreading from the left turning lane, across the double-yellow lines and through one lane and into another. From above, they resemble a school of fish.

The casings served as evidence in the Jan. 18, 2004 murders of Chris Heyman, 17, and Blake Harris, 18, who were shot in the backseat of a tan Mustang in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. In their last moments, Heyman and Harris talked on their cellphones to friends before they put them down and the driver went to turn the stereo back on. When they reached the overpass, a shooter emptied a modified AP-9 fully-automatic submachine gun in a rapid burst into the Mustang. The gun could fire over 30 rounds per second.

The gunman and his accomplice, out searching for methamphetamine, thought the Mustang had cut them off. During the trial, the accused would admit that he wasn't even sure the tan car was the right one. They exchanged no words with the kids in the Mustang; they were strangers.

The Mustang driver, Michael Universal, who was about a year older than his friends, survived unharmed. With his cellphone out of juice, he had to take one off of one of his friends before he could call for help. "Something happened," he told the 911 dispatcher, according to a transcript. "My back window is shattered." His friends were bleeding from the head, he said. One had "a big lump in his head," and the other was "fucking down," he said. "My best friends," he said. The dispatcher asked if they had been involved in a shooting. Universal wasn't sure.

"You didn't hear a gunshot though?" the dispatcher asked. "I don't know," Universal said. "I was just driving." It happened so fast.

The close-up crime scene pictures show most of the shell casings pinched at the ends, like the plastic tips of cheap convenience-store cigars. The only difference is the number on their evidence markers. Numbers 37 and 40 show blackened gunpowder scars. Numbers 34 and 43 are bullet fragments, jagged-sharp and red tinted.

Note: The images below are graphic and may be disturbing to some readers.

One photo shows a bullet, with a note that says it was taken from the right side of "v/head." It's black as rough coal and almost as big as a plum pit. Bert Heyman, Chris Heyman's dad, had been told that the bullet was pulled from behind his son's right ear.

Just over nine years later, in late February, The Huffington Post interviewed Bert Heyman's wife, Jenny Heyman, for a story on gun violence and trauma. Jenny was heartbreakingly open, sharing her ongoing grief as well as her most cherished memories of her son. But Bert went mute when asked about Chris' death; he would only communicate through email. As he reflected on our email interviews, and the national debate over gun legislation, he said he began thinking of the crime scene, pondering whether to publicize these ghastly police photos of his son's murder.

Heyman had read documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's essay, "America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA)." The director of "Bowling for Columbine" argued that the families of the children killed in Newtown, Conn. should release the photos from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Show the American public what an AR-15 does to 6-year-old bodies and the National Rifle Association's reign would be over, Moore argued.

Moore referenced Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American boy savagely disfigured and murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in Mississippi, and the open casket at his funeral, as helping to draw support to the civil rights movement. He also referenced the photographs from the My Lai massacre as instrumental in turning the country against the Vietnam War.

"I just wanted the world to see," Moore quotes Till's mother as saying at the time of her son's death. "I just wanted the world to see."

Heyman said he admired Till's mother's bravery and found Moore's essay persuasive. "What he says is true to me," Heyman explained. "It spoke to me."

After reading Moore's piece, Heyman went about tracking down Kent Williams, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted his son's killer. "With the Sandyhook massacre and the Gun Regulation issues before us again, we thought it might be a good time to come out of our shell," Heyman wrote Williams in an email.

Heyman had a lot of respect for Williams and the way he kept him informed about every new development in his son's murder case. Williams had kept his promises and won a conviction. To Williams, Chris Heyman's murder stood out, even among the countless gun-violence deaths in California, and the country, each year. California's 4th District Court of Appeal described the killings as "unusually nasty murders."

Even now, when The Huffington Post reached the prosecutor on the phone, Williams circled back to the gun and its prominence in the killer's mind. "There's something about holding a gun that can empty a 50-round clip in seconds," Williams said. "It's like having your finger on a nuclear bomb ... You got the power. You want to use it."

The photos, and the idea of making them public, stirred Heyman into advocacy. Mourning turned into a mission.

"People live not so much in a bubble, but if it's not happening to them they don't really see it or feel it," Heyman said. "People need to see this kind of stuff. They need to feel it."

Heyman's evolution has mirrored much of the country's on gun control. After a string of mass shootings from guns in recent years, many victims and victims' families can no longer sit still as passive grievers. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband, Mark Kelly, formed a political action committee in January aimed at reforming gun laws. The families of Newtown victims have begun actively lobbying Congress. Recently, President Barack Obama gave over his weekly radio address to Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son Ben was killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Wheeler didn't just share her grief but updated the country on the Newtown families' lobbying push.

That lobbying took a huge setback last week, when the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan measure that would have expanded background checks and voted down bans on high capacity gun magazines and assault weapons. From the Senate gallery, Patricia Maisch, one of the heroes of the mass shooting in Tucson, shouted, “Shame on you.”

It was legislation that may have prevented deaths like Chris Heyman's. Bert Heyman isn't a politician, nor is he part of a group of families embraced by the rituals of national mourning. He can't get within shouting distance of politicians. He works the swing shift seven days a week at the Miller Brewing Co. plant in Irwindale, Calif. But he said he could feel himself begin to change after HuffPost contacted him in February, and in his subsequent talk with the prosecutor. Heyman had realized he is still very much weighed down by his loss. "We sort of put ourselves in a hole," he said. "To me that was part of my depression, part of me that is scared shitless to stand up in front of people and talk about this kind of stuff. Talking to you just opened that door."

"I really had to re-examine where I was personally," Heyman said. "What's going to help me get out of this rut?"

In the weeks leading up to the murders, the killer had used the gun on another car. Williams believed that the killer had a name for the machine gun. He called it "his Bitch." The gunman had saved the articles about the shooting and the teenagers' deaths. The gunman "wasn't sad about it or anything," a former friend of the shooter testified at the murder trial. "He was pretty much bragging about it."

The jury and the people watching the trial got to see the crime scene pictures. Williams thought the rest of America should see what the "Bitch" could do. He arranged for the photos to be retrieved from storage. It would take several days to find the boxes of 4-by-6 inch prints.

In her book-length rumination on depictions of violence and cruelty in photography, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag seemed to settle on the simple idea that citizenship requires that we do not look away. To ignore these violent images is to refuse to be an adult in this world.

It seems a good in itself to acknowledge, to have enlarged, one's sense of how much suffering caused by human wickedness there is in the world we share with others. Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood. No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence, of superficiality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia. ... Let the atrocious images haunt us.

Moore, in an interview with The Huffington Post, referenced the Iraq War and President George W. Bush's refusal to allow images of flag-draped coffins coming off military planes as a heinous act of cowardice. Such censorship enables emotional distance, Moore said. "We don't have to take responsibility [for our actions]," Moore said. "We don't have to pay for them … It disconnects us from the rest of the world."

Nearby villagers see the horrors of a drone strike. We have to search images on Google to see the bloody, dusty aftermath. Gun violence in the U.S. gets reduced to a series of crime briefs -- if it's covered at all. "I think we're doing ourselves great personal and societal harm by turning away, by turning our heads away," Moore said.

He noted that Newtown families are not outraged by what he wrote in the essay Heyman read. Some, Moore said, have contacted him and have been encouraging, but he wouldn't reveal more about their conversations.

If Newtown photos come to light, Moore insisted it would have to be with the parents' consent. "I know it would be very difficult because you would want your child to be remembered as a sweet, beautiful child," he said. "But it begs the question of do people really get that Adam Lanza only needed one shot to the heads of these kids to kill them and then … fired up to another 10 shots in each of them, riddling their bodies with these high-powered bullets from an assault rifle at close range?"

Moore wondered how many Newtown parents could only identify their children by the clothes that they were wearing that day.

For Heyman, the public doesn't have to know all that Chris was. But they have to know the impact that these weapons can have on a body. It isn't just about his son in those pictures. "It could be anybody," he said.

After the shooting, Michael Universal sped off in the Mustang with his two friends fatally wounded in the backseat. He took refuge in a nearby McDonald's parking lot. The photos show that he pulled in to a spot facing the fast-food chain's bright enclosed playground for children. The entire area would soon be cordoned off with yellow police tape.

Some cops are shown standing around. Others sit inside a police van.

On the ground a few feet from Chris Heyman's body and the Mustang, there is a torn seat belt purple with blood. Nearby, there is a Burger King soda cup. It was photographed and marked. Next to the back wheel is Chris Heyman's friend's black track clothes and black sneakers, still laced all the way to the top. Where there is white, you can see blood spray.

A passenger side door is open, revealing a foot and then an ankle. A bloody hand hangs to the side, Chris' bloody hand. He is still in his seat, his torso and head are slumped over out of view. The eye is drawn to Chris' knee, tagged with evidence marker No. 2. His body is now evidence: Not something to love, but something to work.

"That's my boy," Heyman recalled thinking. He had come to pick up the pictures from Williams, but the prosecutor wanted to review the photos with him first. They sat in a conference room, with Williams placing the photos on the table. "That's my boy laying there." He said he felt his own body drain of energy.

The mortuary had been willing to have an open casket. But Jenny Heyman didn't want to see her son that way. Instead, Bert Heyman had a small private viewing at "a real old creepy church" the night before the funeral.

"We had to put a hat over his head," the father recalled. "You could see his face." He stopped for a moment and began to sob. "Sorry, man," he said. "There were just pieces of his head missing."

Jenny Heyman told me she has not seen the photos and had no plans to do so. At the trial, as evidence of Chris Heyman's wounds was being presented, she walked out of the courtroom. When she has thought about her son's murder, she said, the effect is physical. "I can feel the bullets hitting me," she said. "I can actually feel the bullets hitting me."

"You have to understand, I'm the mom," she said. "I'm supposed to be there to protect him that night and I couldn't do that."

After much thought, Jenny Heyman decided to support her husband and allow the photos to be released. Bert told her he felt like this is the last way they can honor Chris. "I think it's the right decision to do this. It's just taken me a little longer to understand it. It just hurts," she said.

It's up to us to look.

In one photo, a crime scene technician wearing protective purple surgical gloves takes Chris' wallet from his body and photographs his California driver's license, which reads provisional until age 18. The license lists his hair as black and his eyes as brown. He weighed 147 pounds. He was an athletic kid at home on a soccer field and was taking lessons to pilot an airplane. Staring out from his driver's license photo, his smile looks blissful.

Inside the car, that life is gone. The submachine gun's bullets made parts of his head disappear. Blood spills into a towel and smears across his forehead and into his eyes. The blood sticks over his eyes and across the bridge of his nose like a mask. Chris is still wearing his seatbelt.

His right temple is a purple-metallic color. Blood is trailing from his ear. On his neck above his collar bone, there's a quarter-size bullet wound on his neck. Blood streaks from the hole across his neck. Chris' mouth is slightly open. His eyes are closed. His face is gray and slack.

Bert Heyman stopped at these pictures and couldn't look any more.

"I'm living it," he said. "I don't need to see the pictures."

Throughout the debate, Republicans have engaged warily with victims of gun violence, by turns expressing sympathy and dismissing them as "props" sent out to exploit the emotions of lawmakers. On Wednesday, after the critical amendments failed, Obama reacted angrily to the treatment of the victims. "Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue?" Obama said. "Do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?"

A couple of days before the Senate defeats, Heyman began to sense that whatever he was doing to publicize his son's tragic death would be futile. He emailed a 700-word essay he wrote called "Parent to Parent Plea" which calls for gun regulation -- anything that might prevent a tragedy like the one he endured. Out of his bottomless grief now came this endless energy, he says, that inspired these words.

"We have an opportunity to change our mindset," Bert concluded. "We can be proactive and plan ahead, when you see that we average upwards of 30,000 gun related deaths here in the United States of America every year. It's time for us to pull together as in 'We the People' and think about next year's 30,000 gun deaths and do something positive to try and break that trend … Think of the Victims Families that are left behind, to grieve, to struggle, to wonder ..."

I asked Bert why he wrote it.

"Maybe the pictures aren't enough," he said.

My first gun fired a projectile and was a lever action, cork gun, a Christmas present. My father and uncles promptly indoctrinated me in gun safety and marksmanship. The targets were the ornaments on our Christmas tree. Through the fog of long ago youth, I still recall the men's whoops of pleasure as I knocked one ornament after another off the tree. My mother halted this budding Christmas tradition in quick order; marching my father and his brothers out of the living room. Christmas was never complete without toy guns under the tree.

Northeastern Pennsylvania was deer hunting territory. The first day of deer hunting season remains a holiday, official or unofficial. Every male was expected to hunt. Our Christmas target practice introduced me to firearms. Before entering high school, I was a crack shot and completed NRA gun and hunter safety courses. I was at home in the forests.

This training and experience served me well when I entered the military. Returning from the Vietnam War, I was comfortable as a city and village policeman in Pennsylvania and New York while working my way through university. I returned to military service upon graduation. I know guns and respect them. They are tools not magical talismans. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

From my earliest cork gun days, a respect for safety and a demand for responsibility remained inseparable from guns. Yet, accidents and craziness happened. Cops, families and even religious leaders confiscated weapons from relatives and individuals who were reckless or undergoing personal challenges. Society was more 'flexible' then, probably because we knew our neighbors much better.

Over time, attitudes changed. Where in the old western films, lawmen heroically forced cowboys to check their guns before entering town; now, extremists tell the government to pry the weapons from their cold, dead hands. Elements in US society, unable to keep up or compete, began to see government, not as a tool of civilization, but rather an enemy viewed with open scorn.

When the Center For American Progress Action Fund and VoteVets.org planned a press conference to announce new survey results from the Global Strategy Group, I was eager to attend. Too often, both sides of the firearm slaughter take extreme positions. The NRA sees every rational action to insure safety as a move to ban all guns; while equally extreme opponents willingly call for the banning of all guns everywhere. Neither position is anchored in a reality of the possible. Survey results identified that most Americans occupy the moderate middle. Universal background checks for fire arm sales are strongly supported by civilians.

The big news of the survey is from a Center for American Progress Action Fund press release:

"Two of the four proposed changes to the country's gun laws that are being considered on Capitol Hill receive near unanimous support and a high level of intensity among veteran voters.

- More than 9 in 10 veterans--91 percent--support requiring a criminal background check of every person who wants to buy a firearm, including 74 percent who strongly support it.

- Nearly all veterans--99 percent--support increasing criminal penalties for people convicted of illegally trafficking guns to criminals, including 91 percent who strongly support it."

Veterans and those serving in the military understand both the ability of modern firearms to inflict massive damage and the necessity for overall safety. We, far more than most, realize that to accomplish a mission, we must have both standards and discipline. In US society, the mission is to insure maximum liberty for all. This can only be done through accepted rules. While a street cop long ago, the NRA left me behind. However, a majority (43% favorable/36% unfavorable) of veterans still retain a favorable view of the NRA. National Rifle Association extremism is squandering even this majority.

The Second Amendment is safe. The American people are not. Criminal background checks are a reasonable and sane way to reduce US gun slaughter while maintaining the right to bear arms. The arguments from the NRA and its fellow extremists ignore the fact that firearm restrictions are an integral part of American history. Both military and police experience demonstrate clearly the need for vigilance where firearms are involved. Too many of us know the faces that go with the statistics for suicide and murder. We look out for our brothers and sisters. We do them no favors by ignoring the danger signs. The American public deserves no less.

As for gun extremists claiming the Second Amendment was written to protect the citizens from their government, the founders' actions pretty much prove the lie to that claim. Both Shays Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion make clear our revolutionary leaders' view on taking up arms against the government. The issue is common sense safety proclaimed loudly in the preamble to the US Constitution.

Criminals can always get guns, though the harder it is, the fewer will actually succeed and some will expose themselves in the process. Obviously, unless everyday citizens can have guns for protection, they will be vulnerable to criminal elements.

Criminals use guns for a wide spectrum of activities. At one end they use them to fight each other in gang wars and enforce discipline, as well as simpler situations, such as a drug deal gone bad. They use them against law enforcement officials, so police are invariably armed. They use them in robberies; some types of businesses and some neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable. But they are also used in individual muggings and carjackings. Guns can help protect against robbers, though victims often face a drawn weapon before they are even aware there is a threat at hand. And they are used in burglaries and home invasions. In this situation, guns are obviously useful for protection, and this is reinforced by specific home protection laws in a number of states.

From an individual point of view, it clearly is attractive to own guns for self protection. But a central problem is the fact that many people injured by guns are not injured by criminals but by other legal gun owners. In some cases it is simply due to accidents or carelessness: a small child shooting somebody, a stray bullet, or an accidental discharge. The protection afforded by guns is also illusory to some extent. There was a recent controversy in Colorado when a state legislator told a college rape victim that even if she were armed the night of her attack, odds are she would not have stopped her rapist. Although the statistics cited were faulty, the incident provoked a lot of discussion on the extent to which guns actually provide protection.

Herein lies the central paradox: the more people that own guns for self protection, the more shootings there will be. In addition to accidents, normal, everyday people occasionally lose control of themselves; some are more hot-headed than others, or more depressed, or have more suppressed rage. So domestic problems, or friction at work or school, or a dispute with a neighbor, or racial slurs, or road rage can lead to violence. Certainly the situation is worsened if fueled by alcohol or drugs, or by some one's gradual decline into despondency. And when a gun owner is driven to violence, it can easily involve shooting. There is all the more concern in an economic situation where more people are under more stress.

The typical gun buyer considers himself, or herself, perfectly stable, but is concerned about the other buyers. Background checks try to weed out the most obvious cases of concern, but the central problem remains: both the person buying a gun and other buyers can be perfectly normal today. Well, maybe not quite perfectly. Some only seem normal. Others might harbor thoughts of "taking care" of some one "threatening" them. All are subject to the risks that some one else will take control of their gun. Some percent of those that legitimately buy guns for protection will eventually use them for destruction. One study, for example, reported in Southern Medical Journal in 2010, found that a gun is 12 times more likely to result in the death of a household member or guest than in the death of an intruder. Another study in 1993 found that gun ownership creates nearly a threefold risk of a homicide in the owner’s household.

And that is the Protection Paradox: owning a gun can indeed provide personal protection and can make sense for individuals, but does not make sense for society as a whole. And even for many individuals, the benefits of protection may be overshadowed by the risks their own gun ownership creates. The widespread ownership of protective weapons increases the risks for everyone. There is no answer to this paradox, no solution to the challenge it poses, no clear route to the situation in many other countries where low levels of gun ownership naturally translate into low levels of shootings. More stringent checks can help, but inevitably will provoke much vocal dissent. In the longer run, a more widespread awareness of the low level of actual protection that guns provide coupled with risks involved could lead to lower ownership levels, especially if people are basically comfortable with their economic situations, but for the foreseeable future, the Protection Paradox will continue to confound society.

Even as Congress debates gun safety legislation, a flourishing new virtual currency could provide a way around new restrictions by enabling people to buy guns online almost anonymously.

Bitcoin, the currency that exists only on the Internet and is backed by the confidence of its users, rather than a government or bank, makes it easier for people to buy weapons online without detailed records of those transactions, potentially bypassing new rules put in place by lawmakers to track firearms sales.

"Because the sales are anonymous, it's certainly a challenge to the idea of universal background checks for gun purchases," said Robert J. Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy.

Bitcoin has captured mainstream attention after its value soared from as little as $25 two months ago to as much as $260 this week, before falling to $54 on Friday. Some analysts have attributed its rising value to the banking crisis in Cyprus.

People buy bitcoins with cash and use them to trade goods online. Bitcoin transactions are nearly untraceable, making them the preferred currency of some online gun dealers.

Several websites that sell firearms only accept payment in bitcoins, but they are not easy to find. Most reside on what is called the "Deep Web," or sites that can only be accessed via Tor, a special browser that shields the identities of users.

Nicolas Christin, who has studied online black markets, said buying guns with bitcoins is the online equivalent of purchasing weapons on the street because there's no digital paper trail left behind.

"It's a lot easier to maintain some level of anonymity with bitcoins," said Christin, the associate director of Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute. "It makes it more difficult for someone looking into this to identify the participants of a transaction."

"What you're dealing with are people practicing an extreme form of libertarianism who believe in completely unregulated sales of everything, and that's including guns," he added.

The Armory, one online firearms dealer that sold guns, ammo and explosives, described itself as “an anonymous marketplace where you can buy and sell guns without revealing who you are," according to Gizmodo.

"We protect your identity through every step of the process, from connecting to this site, to purchasing your items, to finally receiving them," the site said.

Last August, The Armory shut down because it didn't generate enough business, according to the site's administrator. But several other online gun dealers are still operating.

One such site, Black Market Reloaded, listed 291 weapons for sale on Friday, from fireworks to guns to explosives. A semi-automatic pistol with a silencer was on sale for the bitcoin value of about $2,500, even though federal law restricts the sale of silencers.

An email to the site's administrator was not returned.

Another site, Executive Outcomes, featured a Barett M82, which was on sale for $5,500 in bitcoins and was described as "one of the most powerful guns in the world."

"We make sure that your firearm is not serialized (we remove the serial and refill with metal), the paperwork is not tracable OR suspicious, and that the firearm is new and unused for optimum performance," the site says.

Executive Outcomes, which says it is based in Texas, only accepts payment in bitcoins "because only bitcoins guarantee full anonymity," the site's administrator said in an email.

"In general, we are trading illicit goods and [bitcoin] is enough to remain anonymous," said the administrator, who did not reveal his name and said he did not conduct background checks on buyers. "I assume that it is impossible to track the transaction in bitcoins."

BitcoinGunParts.com says it was founded last year "to supply the American firearms market with items for sale in bitcoins." The site sells gun triggers, barrels, magazines and other gun parts and deletes all customer records after 30 days.

"We only offer the bitcoin community the opportunity to pay for items in a more convenient and evolved online payment processing system," the site says.

An email to the site's administrator was not returned.

To be sure, someone with a criminal record could acquire a gun through other means, like asking "straw purchasers" who can pass background checks to buy weapons for them.

But Bitcoin adds another layer of anonymity to the online gun market, potentially making it more difficult to identify the buyer of a gun linked to a crime, Christin said.

If Congress enacts new regulations on gun purchases, "you would definitely see an increase in demand for these kind of sites," he said.

UPDATE: A previous version of this story included an illustration that contained the name of an online weapons merchant that has drawn allegations of intellectual property theft. While The Huffington Post is unable to verify those allegations, the illustration has been taken down to avoid taking a position on this dispute.

By Mark Green

Eliot Spitzer and Mary Matalin clash over four hot topics: Can Weiner run after his spectacle of contrition? Does dynasty = destiny for Caroline, Chelsea, Hillary? Is Obama now entitled to a grand bargain? Will Newtown parents out-lobby the NRA?

LISTEN HERE:

When Eliot and Mary were taping Both Sides Now at noon on December 14, we heard live reports of a shooting in Connecticut that went from just-another-one to a sickening slaughter. Four months and 3000-plus gun deaths later, the issue has landed in the Senate. Also, now that Obama has called the GOP bluff on the growth of "entitlements," can Republican leaders just pocket his concession and ignore the growing pain of sequestration locally? (Sorry about that cancer clinic closing?)

*On Guns and (Background) Checks. NRA lobbyists are armed with the accoutrements of political power -- money, threats, intensity, which have worked for 20 years to silence "gun control." Parents of Sandy Hook victims have 100 percent empathy and 90 percent policy support for "massacre control" (Lawrence O'Donnell). So who wins this made-for-movies conflict -- Mr. Smith vs. House of...Guns? Is the Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks worthwhile and plausible?

There's a consensus that its thin soup" in Eliot's phrase. "Worthwhile? Compared to what? Yes it's better than nothing and good that some Republicans support it. But it's not a game-changer because the NRA blunted more meaningful laws." Mary personally supports more extensive background checks but largely for "moral, narcissistic reasons" since it "makes us all feel good but will not deter such tragedies."

A two on one erupts: Host -- but Tucson, Aurora and Newtown shootings all involved large magazine clips (and the shooter in the movie theater had been reported as dangerous by his school therapist). Spitzer: if Manchin-Toomey is not enough, Mary, "would you support stronger laws"? She stands her ground, re-asserting that current proposals would not prevent recent tragedies and opposing stricter laws because of Second Amendment limits. "These tragedies have nothing to do with the presence of guns but everything to do with cultural degradation and a mental health system that doesn't treat lunatics."

Host: While surviving constituents have sometimes lobbied on a controversial issue -- say, funding for various diseases, coal mine safety, 9/11 families -- Congress has almost never seen the daily, door-to-door pressure coming from parents whose children were shot dead. Given the proven power of the NRA -- combined with the added advantages of rural and money interests due to gerrymandering, Senate two-per-state, filibuster, gun industry contributions -- is the hot blade of grieving families the only way to cut this Gordian Knot? Effective or tasteless for President Obama and Francis Wheeler to lobby at such a high emotional register?

Mary says it's both and understands this political tactic. And should something get out of the Senate, neither can predict whether Boehner will allow even a vote on the House floor. Ms. Matalin hopes that he does so that members can "vote their conscience" and voters can see who's on whose side. Governor Spitzer thinks that "it depends on his calculation whether a vote [or no vote] would cost Boehner's party seats in 2014."

*On Obama's Budget. After months of trench warfare, there were yards of movement this week when President Obama proposed a FY2014 Budget that would replace across-the-board Sequester cuts with a mix of some entitlement trims, some tax hikes, some loophole closings, and some spending reductions to reduce the deficit as much as Simpson-Bowles had proposed. Was this a smart gamble to box in Republicans by calling their bluff? The New York Times and Washington Post editorialize yes, the Wall Street Journal says no.

Eliot thinks it was a necessary and important step that, in combination with the growing pain of local Sequester cuts, would put "Boehner in a box." Mary thinks that Obama put himself in a box "by admitting and proposing that social security and Medicare needed cutting." But we listen to Neil Cavuto and Lindsay Graham admit that Obama has made a real move requiring a real response on revenues. And messers Krugman, Huffington and Spitzer agree that the federal budget needs short-term spending to spur the economy and then longer term deficit reduction once growth clicks in. Mary dismisses them all. "There's not a whit of evidence that stimulus spending worked" and as for the Sequester angering voters, she rails against the cost of many separate White House vacations as symbolic moves that erode POTUS's fiscal credibility.

Spitzer dismisses her dismissal. The Sequester will indeed shave a half point off the GDP and "austerity policies are failing Europe." "Well, if a stimulus worked, it would have done so already," counters Mary, who is counter-countered by the CBO analysis concluding that the original Stimulus did save or create three million jobs and produce 40 straight months of job creation. They discuss whether the GOP cares about shrinking deficits or government.

So far, Obama's re-election and his entitlements concession have not motivated the House GOP Caucus to allow any further tax revenues in 2013 to close the deficit and finance government. Who blinks? Depends on jobs numbers and poll numbers when GOP leaders calculate the political impact of President Obama blasting an obstructionist, do-nothing Congress on guns and budgets. The rhetorical questions write themselves: if we register cars and child-proof aspirin, why not guns? Why should we tax seniors who have lost so much wealth in the Great Recession rather than close loopholes for the rich?

*On Dynasty as Destiny. Three relatives of presidents were in the news this week because of possible promotions. What did our commentators think of:

^Caroline Kennedy to become ambassador to Japan? While some embassies go to donors or celebrities, usually major portfolios are reserved for professional diplomats. What of Kennedy to Japan? Eliot and Mary agree that it's a great idea. "She's not a donor obviously but will be a voice of credibility in this hugely important trading partner... Yes, she failed to be publicly glib in her brief Senate bid but she'll be very good in her private articulation of issues" as an envoy. Adds Mary, "she has savvy class and knowledge" and will be someone who the Japanese will appreciate and admire.

^Chelsea Clinton as a future candidate? Will she be an heir who rises (like Bush 41 and 43) or one who falls short (like FDR's sons)? Mary concludes that she has learned so much by, if nothing else, osmosis from her talented parents that she has a natural advantage in being able to talk and understand politics and policy. Eliot too notes her immediate advantage in name recognition (not to mention that BOTH her names are neighborhoods in her home county!). "But at the end of the day, she'll have to prove herself." Like Caroline, like her mother, like Weiner, all are famous for various reasons but voters will scrutinize their skills and visions to make a qualitative judgment about their character and qualifications.

^Hillary Clinton as president. She gave two very publicized speeches on women's issues that spurred even more frenzied Hillary-talk. Will she be subpoenaed by history and popularity? Her former state-wide colleague Eliot thinks yes. "She has an adoring fan base, how could she say no?" Mary's not so sure. "She now the most famous woman in the world but, if she ran, she'd then be dissected. She may conclude that she could have a more positive impact by not running...and she would be easy enough to beat." Eliot laughs -- "that's wishful thinking. We'll let you live there for a while."

*Quick Takes on Thatcher, Carson, Weiner -- only one survived April. Lionized as the slayer of socialism in Great Britain (though not socialized medicine) and villainized for her divisive persona ("Rust in Peace" read one graffiti in London of the Iron Lady), both agree that Thatcher was a transformational figure in England and world-wide...with Mary emphasizing that both she and Reagan were elevated by the admiration and support of the other.

Dr. Ben Carson was a rocket who fizzled, says Spitzer. He rose based on his eloquence, credentials, and Fox search for the next-black-hope (Keyes, West and Cain having previously failed)... but crashed when he compared marrying gays to NAMBLA. Mary touts his bona fides and brains, predicting that he won't enter politics but "will have a TV show by the time Eliot and I come back on Both Sides Now."

Can Weiner go from his personal hell to a competitive mayoral bid? Eliot thinks that his obvious political skills and smarts -- and the flattering cover piece in Sunday's New York Times magazine section -- make it likely that he can run. But to then stand out, he has to "explain his rationale now...he was the outer-borough tough voice against Michael Bloomberg" in 2005 but now lacks that foil. Mary agrees that he has political talent but asserts that Weiner can't win because "he's an obnoxious guy, he just can't help himself... unlike Koch who was charming." Eliot cautions that "Ed was not regarded as charming when he won..."

Will Weiner be a Marv Albert and Bill Clinton whose talents exceeded their scandals? Concludes Spitzer: "He will have to persuade the public. He can do it."

Mark Green is the creator and host of Both Sides Now.

Send all comments to Bothsidesradio.com, where you can also listen to prior shows.

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Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) affirmed Sunday that she will support the bipartisan background checks bill presented by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

Collins released a statement outlining the reasons for her backing, headed by the fact that the bill preserves the constitutional right to bear arms.

The plan would "strengthen the background check system without in any way infringing on Second Amendment rights," Collins wrote, according to the Associated Press.

As of Sunday afternoon, Collins was the second Republican to openly express support for the measure. When the bill was unveiled last Wednesday, Toomey said Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) was on board. In an appearance on CNN's "State of The Union," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also expressed positives, saying he is "very favorably disposed" to the Toomey-Manchin plan.

"I appreciate their work," McCain said. "And the American people want to do what we can to prevent these tragedies. And there's a lot more that needs to be done, particularly in the area of mental health."

Joining Collins in support of the measure on Sunday was the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a gun-rights group holding 650,000 members. The Washington Post reports that the organization emailed its supporters the news in the morning, with a representative telling the paper they "believe it is the right thing to do."

Entitled The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act, the Manchin-Toomey bill calls for measures ranging from preventing gun access for criminals and the mentally ill, to expanding existing background checks to gun shows and online sales.

For full text of the bill, click here.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will vote to expand background checks, NBC reported Saturday.

Collins told NBC's Kelly O'Donnell "I do intend to support" the bill, proposed by Senators Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) this week.

Collins is the third Republican senator to support the effort, following Toomey and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).

HuffPost reported earlier:

According to a Wednesday release from Manchin's office, the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act is designed to prevent convicted criminals and mentally ill individuals from obtaining guns, while maintaining Americans' constitutional right to bear arms. Existing background checks are also expanded to gun shows and online gun sales, which previously stood as loopholes in the system.

Click here to read the full text of the Manchin-Toomey background checks bill.

Collins' public support of the background checks bill comes days after she met with families of Newtown shooting victims. Saturday's Politico Playbook featured comments from Collins on the Newtown visitors, who lamented that the families were "VERY late for their meeting with me."

“I was 45 minutes late for dinner with the president of the United States," she said. "Everybody was seated when I got there, because I spent time talking to the parents and the family members of those who were killed at Newtown. I told them I had a dinner with the president but that I was deliberately being late."

UPDATE (2:08 p.m., 4/14/2013) -- According to CNN, Collins released a statement Sunday, affirming her support for the Manchin-Toomey background checks plan.

“The Manchin-Toomey compromise takes a much more common sense approach by requiring background checks only for commercial transactions and exempts family gifts and transfers,” she wrote.

This will be simple. It comes from the kid part of me who cries easily and gets terribly frustrated when the answers to simple questions are avoided or skirted or otherwise buried in a ton of bullshit that is passed off as deeper thinking. Or when my question is met with another question that has nothing to do with the simple question I have asked. So here's how I pose my question.

A man walks into a gun store and wants to buy whatever the gun may be that when you point it and pull the trigger, it can kill another human being. A new law that is being proposed says the buyer has to wait three days if he wants to buy a gun that when you point it at a human being and pull the trigger you can kill him. Or her. Or that child there.

According to the proposed bill, the delay in the purchase is so that the seller can check to see if it is a person who is a criminal, or someone who is off his or her rocker, that wants to buy a gun that when you point it at another human being you can kill him. Or miss him and kill her. Or the baby.

So here's my question.

Why would your elected official who we all know could do lots more to safeguard you and me and our families from gun-carrying criminals and crazies without doing any real harm to gun owners -- everyone has their own version of what I am referring to -- why wouldn't that elected official take the first step, a step that would not infringe in any way on any decent, law abiding, family man or woman gun owner -- and vote to pass a bill that would call for background checks on anyone buying a gun that when you point it at another human being and pull the trigger can end a human life?

No bullshit now, why?

Tea party Republicans in New Hampshire want to press criminal charges against state legislators who voted to repeal the state's Stand Your Ground law and kick them out of office.

Two Republican members of the state House of Representatives and a former state GOP chairman have filed a petition to remove 189 members of the state House and file criminal charges against them for their March 27 vote to repeal the controversial gun law. The group claims that the vote violates the lawmakers' oath of office, unconstitutionally challenges the Second Amendment and fails to adhere to state constitutional protections on life.

The Stand Your Ground law, which allows deadly force when someone believes their life is in danger, was enacted in 2011, during a period of tea party control of the New Hampshire state Legislature. The repeal bill passed the Democratic-controlled House and is pending in the Republican-controlled Senate. Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) has said she will sign it.

"I want you all to know that Thursday afternoon State Rep. John Hikel and I filed formal criminal complaints against the sponsor of HB135 and all 189 Reps who voted in favor of this bill," former state Republican Party chairman Jack Kimball posted on Facebook Friday. He said complaints also were filed with county sheriffs by state Rep. J.R. Hoell (R-Dunbarton) and resident Gus Breton, and would be filed on Saturday with the U.S. Marshal's office. "All of the State Reps (Democrat & Republican) that voted to repeal the 'Stand Your Ground' law have violated their oath of office and should be removed," Kimball added.

Kimball said he plans to lead a rally in front of the Statehouse in Concord on Saturday to demand action against the 189 lawmakers. State Reps. Hikel (R-Goffstown), Al Baldasaro (R-Londonderry), and Lenette Peterson (R-Merrimack) have filed a "redress of grievances" petition with the Legislature seeking the immediate removal of the lawmakers, miscellanyblue.com reported Thursday. The petition seeks to nullify all votes cast by the 189 lawmakers since taking office in January, potentially killing laws that Democrats passed to reverse legislation during the two years of tea party rule in Concord.

The three charge that the 189 legislators voted to take away New Hampshire residents' right to protect themselves and their property.

Hoell told The Huffington Post that those who voted to repeal Stand Your Ground have violated the state constitution's protections of rights to bear arms, and protect property and life.

"They violated their oath of office," Hoell said of his 189 colleagues. "They should be removed from office."

Peterson was outspoken during last month's debate on the repeal, saying the law is needed to protect women. She said takes her guns backpacking with her daughters to defend herself from potential murderers and rapists in the New Hampshire wilderness.

“HB 135 is declaring open season on women in New Hampshire," Peterson said in the debate.

The only thing about the Second Amendment that is certain is that it was intended to assure the survival of the fledgling nation that drafted it. That nation is now a superpower with no real need of a standing militia to support it's military might, but the possibility that it might not always be a superpower, or still be a constitutional superpower, still argues the inherent and dire wisdom of the Second.

To trust the common man with the right to keep and bear arms is emblematic of the kind of nation we intended ourselves to be, a democracy in which governance is in the purview of that same man. If we can trust ourselves to govern ourselves then we can trust ourselves to own firearms. Reciprocally, it would seem that if we can no longer trust each other to own firearms, we can also no longer trust each other to participate in governance. We want to have a country in which guns and governance can coexist. If we don't, then we will no longer have the country intended by the framers of our constitution.

A double-edged sword is fabled for the property that it "cuts both ways." It is a more dangerous sword to face and a more dangerous sword to wield. The Second Amendment is that kind of weapon. To wield it makes us stronger and imperils us at the same time. The death toll of our untutored, our youth, our mentally unfit and our innocents has grown in proportion to the lethality of the weapons it guarantees us a right to own. Our double-edged sword is capable of cutting both ways more lethally on foe and friend alike than ever before. The fact is that for us to uphold the Second there is a cost in casualties and fatalities that has, more recently, vastly exceeded the utility of the Second.

If we are unable to find a way to handle this weapon, the Second, without more imperiling ourselves than our foes on any given day, then we may not yet be able to govern ourselves the way our constitution proposed that we could, and may so not yet deserve this or the other liberties appurtenant to that constitution. We are a country in which, having wrested rights from an autocracy, now still furiously labor to apportion some finite amount of liberty among ourselves.

Liberty in not finite. Neither is responsibility.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Public opinion matters a great deal in the American system of government, just as it does in any democracy. But it sure isn't the only thing that matters, as the following true story demonstrates. It's what I call A Tale of Two Constituencies.

Before I get deeper into my tale, though, my reader should know that in the land this tale comes from, the president had been elected and re-elected on not only a progressive platform, but arguably with the most populist rhetoric in 40 years. He had run his campaigns on fighting for the middle class, protecting the vulnerable from harm, taxing the wealthy, and taking on the wealthy special interests who were harming our economy. His re-election campaign had bragged about taking on Wall Street, and harshly criticized the vulture capitalist business practices of his opponent. And because of running these kinds of campaign, this president won two decisive victories in a row, becoming the first president of his center-left party to win a clear majority of the votes more than once since the 1930s.

So that gives you a sense of the kind of land this was, and the kind of president they had. Now for my tale. You see there two constituencies I wanted to compare and contrast in this democratic land governed by this center-left populist...

The first was extremely small in number, depending on how you count it only a few thousand people at the most. They represented the least popular institution in American society, even less popular in many polls than the Congress, which was saying something in a land where the Congressional leadership had been rated as less popular than head lice and root canal surgery. The group in question was widely blamed for an economic collapse more severe than any in 80 years, and was widely believed by journalists covering them, lawyers for many different clients who had dealt with them, and ex-prosecutors following their practices to have engaged in massive and wide-scale fraud on top of an estimated million counts of perjury in just one scam that they pulled off (something referred to by the media as robo-signing). They were reviled by every major bloc of American voters, including those of the conservative party as well as by all the key blocs of swing voters. And to top it all off, with their money and their rhetoric, they overwhelmingly supported the losing candidate in the presidential election.

The second group was one of this country's biggest voting blocs, almost 44 million members strong and at least 16 percent of the nation's electorate. It was a group that was legendary both in how high their turnout numbers were compared to other voting blocs and in how much of a swing group they were in most elections. This group was generally revered by the rest of the population, and the programs in this nation's government budget that helped this group were overwhelmingly popular. In fact, for the program that was most widely identified with this demographic, over 80 percent of the population strongly opposed cuts in that budget item.

Now anyone with an ounce of common sense, logic, and political awareness would tell you that the second group is the one that politicians would want to stand with, and that the first group would have been isolated and punished, not to mention completely toxic for any politician to be associated with. They would also tell you that first in line to deal justice to the first group and embrace the second group would be that center-left president who had run that populist campaign.

But in the bizarre and troubled land of black magic and twisted morality I describe, the scenario I described has not come to pass. The president, even while doing all kinds of other progressive things on issues like guns, immigration, LGBT rights, and in other aspects of his budget, has failed to take on the first group, and has cut benefits for the second group. Seriously. I know how completely messed up that sounds.

But of course, this is America in the present hour. That most widely reviled constituency, Wall Street executives, have not been prosecuted for their crimes, have not had their Too Big To Fail banks broken up, have had any regulations against them so watered down as to hardly impact on the way they do business, and have just as much access to the halls of government today as they did before the financial collapse. Meanwhile, that massive and beloved constituency, America's grandparents, are having their Social Security and Medicare benefits cut in that president's budget, the one who ran that populist progressive campaign.

It's like a very bad fantasy novel, with a plot twist no one would believe.

Progressives need to be clear -- crystal clear, as Jack Nicholson would say -- that this twisted logic and morality will be opposed with every ounce of their energy. The good news is that the politics are with us just as much as the morality of the matter -- no politician has to explain themselves or be defensive with voters as to why they are opposing Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts. The voters are on our side on this issue, even if Wall Street money and the president are not. And if Democrats in the House strongly oppose these cuts, they will fail, because enough House Republicans will oppose any grand bargain that it will take a lot of Democratic votes to pass anything.

Time to stand strong, Congressional Democrats, and reject the twisted logic of a bad fantasy novel.

On Thursday afternoon, shortly after the Senate voted to allow debate on the first major piece of gun control legislation to be considered in decades, Cory Brown saw a massive spike in traffic for his website.

His site, FreeGunShow.com, acts as a kind of Craigslist for the weapons world -- where buyers and sellers can meet online and make deals with each other.

"I wanted to create my own marketplace for buyers and sellers to connect for free," he said about his site, which launched in Novemeber. "On Craigslist you cannot list anything weapon related. People were running out of places to conduct business."

Amid the recent focus on gun control reform on Capitol Hill and the deadly shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., aggressive web entrepreneurs like Brown have been quietly ramping up businesses to function as digital middlemen for the firearms market. Now, as demand for guns and ammunition has emptied shelves at many brick-and-mortar stores, these online weapon sites give gun buyers more options -- and allow them to sometimes skirt background checks.

Sites like Brown's offer two types of sales -- those with dealers who have a federal firearms license and must conduct background checks, and sales that are private and have little oversight for background checks. Brown said that the majority of sales conducted through his site are with federally licensed dealers, but that around 5 percent of sales are private.

On Capitol Hill this week, senators agreed to a bipartisan deal on background checks for guns, which would expand checks on all Internet sales. But Brown said he doesn't think it would have a big impact on his business.

"Currently (with existing state laws) I think most sellers figure out what their state requires and follow that process for transfers in-state and out-of-state transfers," he said.

Another recently launched gun marketplace called GunCycle.com operates more like eBay, letting sellers auction off firearms and related merchandise. Owner Bob Ralph earns money by taking a small percentage out of each final transaction. He said he closed a police gun shop in 2011, but saw an opportunity to make guns available to what he called "average Joes."

Ralph said he's not worried about illegal sales being conducted privately through sites like his, since most transfers on his site have to go through dealers with federal firearms licenses.

But gun-control groups say that third-party platforms only make it easier to conduct private sales. In December, the gun-control lobby group the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence launched a wrongful death lawsuit against Armslist.com, another marketplace website open since 2009. It is the first lawsuit of its kind to target an online weapons seller, claiming the website enabled a gun purchase that would have been illegal in a brick-and-mortar store under state law.

Neither Brown nor Ralph said they are concerned that the lawsuit -- or even the renewed debate over gun control laws -- will put an end to their businesses.

"Federal laws won't change anything in the marketplace," Brown said. "The people who are not doing [background checks] are already criminals."