As someone who agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, I also accept that there are limitations on every right delineated in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

You can embrace the First Amendment's right to free speech -- knowing it allows for some pretty ghastly ideas to be unleashed -- but also understand that uttering some thoughts aloud can get you arrested. You can't incite violence or issue physical threats without potential consequences. And court cases throughout the past half-century have placed numerous "time, place and manner" restrictions on free speech.

In the same vein, you can be a strong defender of the right to private gun ownership for self-defense and also agree that background checks are a good idea before a federally licensed firearm dealer sells a gun.

I am keenly aware of the tide of damning rhetoric fixin' to roll my way from NRA and Gun Owners of America members for typing that last sentence. I was a member of the National Rifle Association for years. Even spoke on a panel at the 2000 convention in Charlotte, N.C., where the now famous video clip of actor and activist Charlton Heston saying, "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" was captured. But the rhetoric and the phone calls and the pleas for money ramped up so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that I grew weary of the hysteria. So I dropped my membership.

As the former editorial director at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I used to argue for a living. A rigorous verbal parry-and-thrust was as exhilarating as the first cool day after a long Texas summer. Editorial board meetings largely were exercises in finding common ground, regardless of the issue, among a group of diverse folks. The writers came armed with facts, not just feelings, to bolster their positions. But they also came with open minds and a willingness to test their own viewpoints through the prism of fact colored by their colleagues' experiences. If your position lost the day, no one stopped talking to his or her co-workers. Tomorrow would bring another argument on a different topic.

That's why it is painful to see our nation as a land where people demonize others for holding contrary opinions.

Disagreement should lead to conversation, not condemnation. But that's not the American way in a world of Twitter and reality TV that's anything but real. Heaven forbid someone actually invest time into trying to understand another person, whose life journey doesn't mirror his or her own.

But that's not the role of an advocacy group, is it? Organizations like the NRA and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence need enemies to maintain their existence. And in order to grab the focus of an audience with the attention span of a cocker spaniel puppy and a taste for red meat, the message has to be short, simple and sensational.

The NRA's Wayne Lapierre: Gun grabbers are "political terrorists!"

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: Members of Congress are "taking donations to protect the rights of dangerous people to buy guns!"

Special-interest groups play an important role in American democracy. Because their focus is so narrow, their leaders pay painstakingly close attention to potential legislation or initiatives that might otherwise be overlooked in myriad streams of information clogging daily life. They can educate and mobilize minds of like interest to contact lawmakers and decision makers.

But they also need to raise money to continue their work. Just as an emotional story about a child with a dreaded medical condition can open wallets for children's hospitals, so can hyperbolic rhetoric with real or imagined threats loosen checkbooks for the NRA and the Brady Campaign.

It is a fact that firearms are so tightly woven into the fabric of the American culture that their private ownership is protected in our most sacred secular document.

It also is a fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 33,736 Americans died in firearm-related deaths in 2014 (the latest year statistics are available). Of those, 10, 945 were gun-related homicides. The same year, 33,804 people died from injuries sustained in motor vehicle traffic events. And 51,966 people died by poisoning.

Not everyone who owns a gun is a fan of the NRA. Not everyone who doesn't own a gun wants to stop others from having them. Now if we could only find a way to get those special-interest groups together for a nice argument.

J.R. Labbe is a communications professional in Fort Worth and the former editorial director of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Twitter: @jrlabbe55