After every mass shooting there is a renewed debate and call for better gun control, and pushback from gun owners who say, “Now is not the time to get political,” and “There’s nothing we can do to stop gun violence, it’s the price of freedom.” Then precisely nothing happens until we get distracted by something else and forget about gun violence until the next headline-grabbing shooting.

Clearly whatever we are doing is not working, and it is the oft-cited definition of insanity to do the same thing and expect a different outcome. So what are we doing wrong?

First, we have to acknowledge that there is a problem. There are about 33,000 gun deaths per year in the US. This is more than any other wealthy country – only war-torn banana republics have higher rates of gun deaths. There were 477 mass shootings in the US in 2016.

About two thirds of gun deaths are from suicides. That is a large portion, but that still leaves 11,000 non-suicide gun deaths each year in the US. Gun homicides are a huge problem, not diminished at all because gun suicides are an even bigger problem. About 20% of gun deaths are crime and gang-related homicides, mostly young men killing other young men. Also, about 1,700 women are killed each year from gun-related domestic violence.

I reject the notion that this is the best we can do, that this is the price of freedom. Other Western democracies seem to enjoy freedom without anything close to the same rate of gun violence. So why has this been such a hard problem to solve?

I don’t think there is a simple answer. We can point at individual factors, and certainly I agree that the narrow-minded gun lobby is part of the problem. But I think there is a reason this vocal minority has been able to stave off effective gun policy – because there is a deeper dysfunction in the entire political landscape.

To clarify – family therapists often talk of the “identified patient.” Families come to them often with the narrative that one family member is the problem and they need to be fixed. They are the identified patient – but the therapist recognizes that there is a family dysfunction that needs to be addressed. That one member is not the problem, just a focal point for the deeper dysfunction. They then focus on every member and the family dynamics.

Perhaps we need to do the same thing with the gun debate. To oversimplify for the sake of discussion, there are two broad sides in this debate, those who promote gun freedom and those who promote gun control. In reality, there are many people who simultaneously believe in both, but these are the two sides of the debate. From my perspective it seems that the two sides don’t communicate well and neither side has a great solution.

The dysfunctional relationship goes like this – gun proponents argue that regulation is not effective, gun opponents don’t understand guns and propose simplistic laws, the real problem is mental illness and other social ills, and law-abiding responsible gun owners should not be punished. Gun control advocates argue that the US has a unique gun problem, the gun lobby stands in the way of effective gun control, and no citizen needs to have access to the kinds of guns that were used in the Las Vegas shooting.

Both sides have a point, but both also have a limited view, they mostly talk passed each other, and nothing real happens.

Part of the problem is that the data is incredibly ambiguous. A recent article in the Washington Post by a researcher reviews the complexity in the research. The bottom line is that it is not clear from the data if proposed regulations would be effective. Advocating for ineffective gun regulations makes it easy to oppose gun regulations.

But this is where the gun lobby, in my opinion, gets it profoundly wrong. Instead of helping write knowledgeable, fair, and effective gun control laws, they just criticize efforts to do so. They love pointing out the sometimes trivial and sometimes meaningful errors that gun opponents make in discussing guns.

“Silencers” only exist in the movies. Real guns use “suppressors” which still leave a loud noise and don’t raise the danger of guns. “Assault rifle” is an arbitrary category. It’s a “magazine” not a “clip.” Got it.

OK – so help craft meaningful regulations that would actually reduce the lethality of legal guns without unfairly or unnecessarily inhibiting the freedoms of responsible gun owners. Gun manufacturers should get involved also. Shouldn’t everyone want to reduce those 33,000 gun deaths?

Obviously guns are not the whole problem. We need to address mental illness, suicide prevention, gang violence, and domestic violence. Absolutely. But all of those problems are made worse by the ready availability of guns and inadequate protections.

If the issue (and politics in general) were not so polarizing, both sides should be able to come together and craft regulations that are effective and represent a meaningful compromise. There is some low-hanging fruit, like universal background checks. A majority of Republicans and Democrats favor such regulation.

The gun lobby needs to abandon its ridiculous “slippery slope” argument as an excuse to oppose any and all gun regulations. They also need to stop their opposition to gun violence research. That is just obstructionist.

Gun law proponents also need to recognize that this is a complex problem and simplistic bans on scary-sounding gun features are not likely to be effective.

Working together perhaps we can find a way to make it really hard to convert a semi-automatic weapon into one that is effectively fully automatic, like was used in Vegas. This will probably necessitate changes in gun design to make it essentially impossible to do such conversions.

Gun owners need to be honest about what they want their guns for – hunting, target shooting, pest control, and self-defense. None of these uses require a gun that is optimized for killing the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. I will leave the details up to the experts, but there should be a way to design civilian guns for civilian uses.

Gun safety regulations are also a no-brainer. And we should be able to keep guns out of the hands of violent and unstable people. Gun owners will have to accept some minor inconveniences to make this happen – that is the nature of compromise.

We’re never going to reduce gun violence to zero, and we do have to accept a certain amount of risk for our freedoms. But we can certainly do better. This should be an issue that can bring both sides together to craft effective evidence-based regulation through meaningful compromise.

I know that’s wishful thinking, but it doesn’t hurt to point it out.