I inherited the shotgun from my grandfather and proudly used it to hunt pheasants and ducks when I was younger. When I carried it in the field, I felt a connection to the crusty Italian who used it for many of the same purposes.

I am comfortable around guns. I grew up with air rifles. I took hunter-safety classes before I obtained my first pheasant-hunting license at age 12. I trained with an M-16 when I was in the Army and qualified many times with a .45 pistol. My training gave me a healthy respect for their power.

Most U.S. gun owners, I suspect, are like me. They know how to safely use their weapons, keep them away from little ones and bring them out each fall for hunting season.

Utah also has a proud heritage of gun ownership, protecting the rights of gun owners, providing for those who want to carry concealed weapons and offering safe ranges for target shooting.

Keeping these things in mind, gun owners expect to face questions each time there is a mass killing in the United States, be it at Columbine, Trolley Square or Virginia Tech.

Does the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantee citizens the right to own and use any type of firearm, or does it apply just to militias?

Should there be a limit on the purchase of guns in the U.S., or should gun owners, like those who own automobiles, be required to pass a basic safety test and then be licensed?

If a citizen with a legal concealed-weapons permit had been on the scene, could the killing at Trolley Square or Virginia Tech have been limited or stopped? Or would having an additional gun being fired in a confusing situation have made matters worse?

Are our gun laws strictly enforced? Or are stronger, more restrictive laws what might prevent someone who is mentally unstable from obtaining a firearm?

Will making it more difficult to buy a gun inconvenience legal gun owners while having little to no effect on crooks and killers?

Do those who live in the West or in more rural parts of the U.S. who regularly use rifles for sporting purposes have different gun needs than citizens who reside in an urban environment where hunting isn't common and guns are used mainly for killing people?

Should there be different rules and regulations for rifles and shotguns used to hunt than for pistols? Or does any U.S. citizen have a right to carry any type of gun at any time in any place?

I honestly don't know the answers to these questions.

What my gut tells me is that requiring new hunters to pass a safety course before going into the field, asking concealed-weapons owners to take classes before getting their permits and restricting some types of firearms for safety or ethical hunting practices is not gun control, it is common sense.

To me, asking someone who is about to buy a gun to have some basic knowledge of how to use it safely makes as much sense as requiring a car owner to pass a test before getting a driver license.

That said, if Columbine, Trolley Square and Virginia Tech give government an excuse to start taking away our basic rights as citizens in the name of safety and security, then we are on a slippery slope to limiting other rights, including freedom of the press. That makes me nervous.

So when a Columbine, Trolley Square or Virginia Tech occurs, we are left with more questions that, in a complicated modern society such as the one we live in today, will never be easy to answer.

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* TOM WHARTON can be contacted at wharton@ sltrib.com. His phone number is 801-257-8909. Send comments about this story to

livingeditor@sltrib.com.