If Americans are divided over gun control, we are not over crime control. In order to improve our chance of reaching consensus on one important avenue of diminishing a national problem, should we not accurately define what our problem is?

I am now for a Second Amendment with no interpretation whatsoever. Let's completely and utterly unfetter the Second Amendment from the outlandish suggestions of the type I've made until just now. The Second Amendment, unfettered, makes no exclusion for incarcerated felons. And so, neither should we.

Gun laws are always going to change incrementally, at best, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth the effort of passing. "The problem is too big" should no longer been seen as an excuse. Marginal gains are better than no gains, magic bullets aside.

Let's dispense with tortured logic and contorted arguments. Arguments get mangled when the truth sticks in your craw. One relevant truth is: A lot of people just like big guns. Big guns make people feel powerful. Lots of people like to be able to say: My gun's bigger than your gun!

"Evil visited this community today," the governor of Connecticut said, though he might have been more accurate if he had quoted Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us." This may be the hardest truth of all to swallow.

Why is regulating guns so unthinkable when regulating cars isn't? There's no good answer. It's time to end the hypocrisy and be honest with ourselves about this conversation.

This really has nothing to do with the Second Amendment, and certainly doesn't infringe on it. The Second Amendment doesn't say anything about what kind of "arms" we can bear. We are left, as a modern society with weapons unimagined in the days of our Founding Fathers, to figure that out for ourselves.

Maybe Kagan is no Lady Gaga when it comes to fashion. But for most Americans, the way Kagan outfits herself is just fine. What's in her mind and her heart are far more important than what's on her back, neck, or her ring finger.

Four police officers are dead, their families, friends, colleagues, an entire city hurting. As we mourn their loss, let's not forget what their sacrifice ultimately accomplished.