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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Americans have struck some strange constitutional bargains.

To preserve an unyielding Second Amendment, we endure thousands of deaths by guns every year. To protect ourselves against extremely rare acts of terrorism, we have tolerated government intrusions on our private lives that strain the restraints of the Fourth Amendment.

The FBI reports that 12,253 people were murdered in the United States in 2013 and that 8,454 of them were killed by firearms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, counting suicides, accidents, police shootings, homicides and other gun use, almost 34,000 people were killed by firearms in 2013. The Department of Homeland Security reported there were six deaths in the United States in the same year due to terrorism.

Even when schoolchildren in Connecticut were killed by a madman carrying weapons legally obtained by his mother, Congress took no action to improve gun safety, let alone restrict gun access, citing Second Amendment concerns. The National Rifle Association said the way to prevent future school attacks was to arm schoolteachers.

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When it comes to rights other than to bear arms, we are more flexible. It wasn’t until this year, and only after Edward Snowden disclosed the NSA’s domestic spying program, that Congress failed to reauthorize a section of the Patriot Act that allowed the government to obtain pretty much every American’s phone record on the flimsiest of evidence that terrorism might be afoot. Congress had reauthorized that provision seven times before. And there are still plenty of other ways Uncle Sam can keep an eye on us.

Contrary to the bumper sticker that an armed society is a polite society, public health research shows an armed society is a dangerous society. Four Harvard University studies covering several years, and multiple states, countries, and income and social groups all found that the more guns there are in private hands, the more likely there are to be homicides, both gun-related and otherwise.

A 2011 statistical analysis by Richard Florida found that states that ban assault weapons, require trigger locks or have safe-storage requirements have significantly lower firearms deaths than states without such requirements.

A recent spate of gun violence seems to have ushered in a Wild West phase. The Albuquerque Journal’s Thursday newspaper pictured an armed civilian guarding a military recruitment center in Colorado Springs against a repeat of the shootings in Chattanooga.

Gun sales locally are surging after several shocking crimes, including the shooting of a man by, police say, teens who were “mobbing” in the neighborhood. The sheer randomness and brutality – the juveniles allegedly kept right on breaking into homes and cars after killing Steven Gerecke – clearly touched a nerve.

But for one who spent time in Moscow during the lawless early days of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, when hotels resembled military bases and businesspeople traveled with several armed guards, the sight of streets bristling with guns is anything but reassuring.

Even with good intentions and training, firefights don’t always turn out they way you’d like. In 2012, two New York City cops wounded nine innocent bystanders in the process of killing an armed homicide suspect on a city street.

Guns aren’t going away.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to own firearms. As a practical matter, there are too many guns owned by too many people to disarm the population. Pew Research estimates there are anywhere from 270 million to 310 million guns in private hands in the United States. There is no legal mechanism and no political will to eliminate guns, no matter what the conspiracy buffs say.

There are some common-sense things that can be done, said Michael Vono, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande and a member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence. Vono was part of a 1,500-person march in Salt Lake City recently that called for an end to gun violence.

Vono emphasized that the bishops have taken no position on the right to bear arms, but they are against anything that harms people, including gun violence, he said.

The bishops would expand background checks to include gun shows, Internet sales and commercial sales. They say gun trafficking should be a federal crime, smart gun technologies should be adopted by manufacturers, laws should require guns be stored safely and mental health care access should be improved.

Just as important, Vono said, churches have to combat a culture of violence, fed by drug abuse, problems in the home and popular media that glamorize killing.

It is difficult to see how such efforts to make society safer violate the Second Amendment, but since no one in Congress is pushing these ideas, even after the Chattanooga and Charleston shootings, it’s safe to say our unique constitutional bargain will continue for the foreseeable future.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Winthrop Quigley at 823-3896 or wquigley@abqjournal.com. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.