Photo

Nicholas Kristof’s call for a “new strategy” to combat gun violence is both necessary and compelling, but the solutions he advances — in particular changing how gun control advocates explain and justify their positions to gun owners — I think need a different approach.

The size of the civilian gun arsenal increases for one reason and one reason only: namely, the possibility that legal access to firearms will get closed down. The number of civilian-owned guns has increased by 50 percent over the last two decades, while the percentage of households with guns continues to decline. This massive increase in gun sales, particularly since 2009, did not represent new consumers entering the gun market. It represents current consumers stocking up on these adult toys.

Why do I call these lethal items toys? Because that’s how guns are used by the people who buy them. Unlike the good old days, fewer than 5 percent of America’s population now lives in areas where hunting is part of everyday life. Guns are also not generally used for defense against crime and violence, except occasionally in random, unplanned ways. The latest research covering more than 14,000 criminal events indicates that victims used guns to defend themselves less than 1 percent of the time. And notwithstanding overblown National Rifle Association claims that the 2nd Amendment is a fundamental shield in the Age of Terror, the country’s ability to defend itself doesn’t depend on a self-styled militia holed up at Malheur Refuge.

I have sold more than 14,000 guns in my gun shop so I know why people buy guns. Most gun owners keep guns around because they were raised in families that always had guns. Since guns don’t usually wear out, they end up being transferred from one generation to the next along with all the other junk and bric-a-brac that moves from grandpa’s garage to dad’s basement and then into some nephew’s garage. Every time that NPR runs a gun story on their website, there’s usually a picture of a table at a gun show chock full of guns. But next time there’s a model train show in your neighborhood, spend an afternoon walking around the room. You’ll see exactly the same people in the aisles that you’ll see at a gun show, except the tables will be filled with different scale trains. When a high-profile shooting occurs and the possibility looms large that all those gun show tables may be swept clean, buying the next model train set can wait.

Despite what the N.R.A. says about people, not guns killing other people, there is no consumer product as lethal as a gun. But walk up to a guy (and it’s still almost always a guy) who is lovingly caressing the gun he just bought and tell him that what he’s holding is a lethal weapon and he’ll stare at you in disbelief. Ask him why he just plunked down $600 and he’ll stare at you again. He bought that gun because he likes buying guns — it’s as simple as that. He may mumble something about the 2nd Amendment because that’s what he’s been told, but if you think picking up a gun is any less impulsive than buying any other nonessential consumer item, think again.

Regulating the purchase of any consumer product usually requires, at best, a reluctant change in the behavior of those consumers who want to buy the product; in this case the product happens to be a gun. That explains why the N.R.A. can always find gun owners who will stand up against any sort of change. But gun owners should be willing to support sensible responses to gun violence like background checks and safe storage laws. Rather than considering them as participants in a modern morality play, they need to be engaged as consumers who, above all, don’t want to lose their ability to quickly and easily purchase guns. The trick is to convince gun owners that by helping to find ways to protect us from gun violence they won’t lose what they love. But that’s a conversation of a very different kind.

Mike Weisser (@MikeTheGunGuy) is the owner of the Ware Gun Shop in Massachusetts and a member of the N.R.A. since 1995.