by Jim Foster

As are most people, I’m heartsick at the horrible attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that wounded her, killed six innocent bystanders and maimed 13 more. The most heartrending was 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, born on Sept. 11, about whom much has been written and said.

In the aftermath, we’ve seen predictable outrage from the right and left about how the heated rhetoric of the other side laid the groundwork for the shooting. Much as I hate the current atmosphere of vitriol, there is simply no evidence that Jared Lee Loughner planned the attack after hearing Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck or anybody else.

What we do know is that Loughner got his gun and high-capacity bullet magazines after his repeated actions had shown him to be mentally ill. The college he was attending said he could not return until he had a mental health evaluation. Yet that didn’t stop him from buying a semi-automatic weapon and large ammo clips. He was only stopped by heroic individuals as he paused to put another big clip in.

I own guns, and I support the responsible use of them. I learned how to use a gun responsibly as a young boy while hunting small game and deer with my dad. But why can’t we use this horrible incident to enact a few reasonable safeguards that probably would have prevented this tragedy or at least reduced its terrible toll?

First, what responsible gun owner thinks that mentally ill people have a right to buy guns, especially automatic weapons? We need to move toward a mental background check for people wishing to buy handguns and automatic weapons.

Second, we should reinstitute the ban on high-capacity magazines that was in place for 10 years as part of the assault weapons ban. There is no need for ordinary gun users to have these that isn’t overridden by the danger when criminals and the mentally ill can get them. While Loughner could still have done damage with an ordinary clip, there’s no doubt he would have killed and maimed fewer and been easier to stop.

When it comes to reasonable limits on guns and ammunition, we have let the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby play a clever game. They would have us believe that anyone who supports the most minimal and reasonable gun restrictions really wants to take away all firearms and repeal the Second Amendment. Any legislator who proposes basic firearm regulations is promised an opponent with unlimited funding in the next election.

So far, the reasonable center has let them get away with this game. I think most folks are like me. We support gun rights, but also support reasonable regulations on firearms.

In most places, you have to be licensed to perform potentially dangerous activities such as driving a car, flying a plane, applying pesticides or even much less dangerous

pursuits like hairstylist or pedicurist. Why is it unreasonable to regulate and require thorough background checks before one can purchase a Glock 9 millimeter semi-automatic weapon with a huge clip that you then take to a shopping mall and fire 30 rounds at innocent citizens in around seven seconds? It's time to call them out.

Will the gun lobby really storm the barricades of the State Houses and Capitol Hill for the sacred cause of assault weapons and giant clips for criminals and mentally ill? Does someone too mentally ill to attend college still have the right to take his loaded Glock to a legislator's meet and greet in a shopping mall? Will we continue to be the only Western democracy without effective restrictions on deranged people wielding automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines?

Stay tuned.

Jim Foster, an outdoor enthusiast and gun owner, writes from Mechanicsburg.