The New Zealand Mosque shooter wanted to start a fight in the United States over gun control, hoping that fight might tear us apart — as it sometimes threatens to.

But what if we reasoned together, rather than screaming at one another?

Reason can be tough to come by in a debate too often dominated by loud voices at fringes. The frequent call for “common-sense gun control” too often rings hollow; for who decides what “common-sense” means? It means one thing to one side, another to the other.

Maybe "common sense” ought to be defined by the people themselves.

And maybe, in Florida, we’ll get that chance.

In the wake of the Parkland school shooting, the Florida Legislature considered, ever so briefly, a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” It died quickly, and that was that.

But those most passionate about the issue — many of whom had family or friends killed in the school shooting — decided to try an end run:

If the Legislature wasn’t going to act, maybe the people themselves could.

So they founded a political action committee called Ban Assault Weapons Now, or BAWN, and attracted bipartisan support (and funding). BAWN is trying to collect enough signatures to get a proposed ban on the 2020 ballot; a partner organization, Americans for Gun Safety Now!, handles education and advocacy.

Jon Mills, a former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and former dean of the University of Florida College of Law, was hired to write the ballot proposal. It’s sweeping, characterizing “assault weapons” as “semiautomatic rifles and shotguns capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition at once, either in a fixed or detachable magazine, or any other ammunition-feeding device.”

The proposed ban would make possession of such weapons a third-degree felony. Military and law enforcement would be exempt, but existing privately owned weapons would not be "grandfathered." Owners would get one year to register them before possession becomes illegal.

There is much in this proposed amendment for Second Amendment advocates to dislike. Why should someone who purchased one of these weapons lawfully have his weapon subject to government registration? And how would it be enforced? That is, what of those who refuse to register their until-now lawfully owned firearms? Should law enforcement go take them?

Do we understand how that would legitimize the fear that "government is coming for our guns?" And do we understand the forces that might unleash?

There are, in other words, legitimate arguments against a ban in addition to the impassioned arguments for one. But the point here is to neither support nor oppose this specific proposal; it's to say that if it gets on the ballot, it's wholly proper for Floridians to have the chance to weigh in, and perhaps give the proposal more of a chance than the Legislature ever will.

Will Floridians be moved by what happened in Parkland, what happened in New Zealand? Or would the proposal represent an unconscionable assault on freedom?

Second Amendment advocates may point out the dangers of putting a constitutional right up for a vote. Is that what the Founders intended? And if so, what other rights might we curtail or eliminate via referendum?

That, they may say, is the slippery slope defined. And it is.

But what other way is there for Florida to get off the dime and either act — or definitely not act? Did the quick, dismissive vote on an assault weapon ban by the Legislature last year really represent the will of the people?

This would give us the chance to find out.

Direct democracy on this issue may ultimately be preferable to legislative fiat, left or right. It might lend a sheen of legitimacy to the process, whereas those who would ban guns see the Legislature's demurral last year as illegitimate; and gun owners might see the opposite in the same light.

Let us debate this issue, let us argue over whether safety or liberty ought to take precedence; let us reason, let us make our respective cases.

Then let us vote.

And let us then accept the results of that vote as the true will of the people — even if it doesn't reflect our own.