It is often said that for the sake of fair debate concerning the issue of gun control, we must understand and lend credibility to both sides.

Even President Obama proclaims a deep respect for hunting and gun ownership, going so far as to validate his image as a skeet shooter by releasing a photo of him partaking in the sport.

The groundwork for debate over gun control seems to have been set that pragmatists working on the side of gun control must respect and honor a grand, poignant history of gun ownership. This groundwork isn’t just flawed, it’s downright sad.

I don’t respect gun culture, and you shouldn’t either. Glorifying, esteeming, honoring or even respectfully permitting the image of gun culture as a legitimate historical institution is blatantly immoral.

Another unbelievably real story about gun violence provoked my ire this time around.

Janay McFarlane was shot hours after her sister attended an anti-gun violence speech by Obama.

You can’t make these horrific stories up.

The staggering, shocking, depressing, horrific toll that gun violence exacts on American citizens, stories you’ve heard as much about as I have, are compounded in brainless horror by those trumpeting gun culture as a counterbalancing good.

Janay McFarlane does not care about your deer hunting.

Newtown does not care about that lovely memory of your skeet shooting trip with your father, however much his leather jacket smelled like manhood and dreams.

The Constitution has been downright wrong more than it’s been right. How many tears can your Second Amendment dry?

Your gun culture forgets — or worse, remembers — one simple thing: guns were made to kill. That is what they do. They are machines of death, however much you try to add societal history to them.

Please, don’t respect gun culture.