“Dale and I have been married 29 years. We dated for nearly eight years before our wedding, with some time off here and there. We raised two young men, who are now 25 and 27 years old. We have moved four times. We have negotiated some very challenging situations in our careers and personal lives.

I share this because you need to understand that many, many arguments occurred as we built this record. There were big arguments and small disagreements. Frustration, anger, sadness and many other negative emotions have been felt by both of us.

But we’ve never resolved one argument. It is stupid and completely unrelated to our marriage, and yet it is a hill upon which we are both willing to die. If the topic comes up, we just go to our corners and come out fighting.

You may wonder and fairly enough, what entrenched and explosive marriage-rending issue this could be. Simply put, it is this:

Are golf and race car driving sports or leisure activities?

Already, I can feel my pulse quicken. Of course, they aren’t sports. They are as much sports as shuffleboard is a sport. I don’t know how anyone can argue otherwise. (No disrespect intended to professional drivers and golfers.)

Look around at any stoplight. The people in the front left seats are drivers. What are they doing? They are driving. Some of them will go fast. Some will go slow.

It’s against the law to drive 180mph on our roads. Could our fellow lead footed drivers go that fast on a track with other drivers going at the same speed? I believe they can. They can take their leisure activity — driving — and go faster.

Let’s talk about golf. I don’t know how a person who has been golfing for nearly four decades can argue it’s a sport. Go to any golf course. You will see people participating in this leisure activity, and you will see some of the worst golf shots on record. This will occur on any course at any given time. Despite their horrible performance, what are they doing? The are golfing. They are golfers.

I could go on and on. Perhaps you might be interested in Dale’s argument for why they are sports. When he starts writing a blog, I’ll l share it with you. Until then, I get the last say, and they are leisure activities. Sometimes, you will see outstanding golfers or racecar drivers who also happen to be great athletes. That doesn’t change the leisure activity in which they are participating.

None of this is the point of what I want to write to you today, although I am writing about another far more serious but also seemingly unresolvable issue. This week there was a shooting and fatality on UNC Chapel Hill’s campus. I went to Pitt. Dale went to Temple. Shootings occur in those cities. They are very rare in Chapel Hill.

I used to live in Chapel Hill. Once my dogs ran off our property and headed straight for the very busy 15-501 four lane road nearby. It was rush hour, which probably saved both of their lives. By the time we got there, cars were in the median and in ditches on the side of the road. The drivers compromised their own cars to avoid hitting our dogs. That’s Chapel Hill.

Backups occur, and you might think there is an accident. No, it’s just a turtle crossing the road, or maybe some geese. Everyone is fine with it. That’s Chapel Hill. It’s a quaint, sweet, quiet town centered around the University. And now, they have the distinction of being another place with a school shooting.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m a middle child, a Gemini, argumentative or its because of my political science degree, but I can have very long, drawn out debates within my own brain. Usually, I come to a conclusion that satisfies me, but like the argument Dale and I can’t resolve, I can’t find the right answer on guns.

Some background here, I didn’t grow up with a gun in my house. When I was eleven years old, we moved to Stroudsburg, PA, and there, the first day of deer hunting season was a day off from school. Until that move, I didn’t know anyone with a gun. After the move, lots of my female friends were hunters. I can see two sides to this story, and they both revolve around the same issue.

Guns either make a person feel unsafe, or they make a person feel safe.

Every place I have lived, has been, at most, five minutes from a police car. If I called 911, I could feel confident help was arriving soon. On our recent drive through western NC and Tennessee, I saw many homes that were miles and miles from a grocery store, let alone a police station. I don’t pretend to know what if feels like to live in a remote area where a police car may not arrive for 20 minutes. I imagine gun ownership provides a sense of safety for these people.

Columbine occurred when my kids were in preschool. Sandy Hook occurred when they were in middle school. They were in college when Parkland occurred. They were big news, because they were both horrible and considered rare. Now, school shootings remain horrible, but we can’t call them rare anymore. I imagine parents dropping their kids off at school feel their children are unsafe because of guns.

Gun legislation makes some people feel unsafe. It makes others feel safer. Safety is one of our primary needs as human beings. How do we find compromise when there are people who feel compromise threatens their safety?

Gun rights are primarily a Republican issue. Imposing restrictions on gun ownership is largely a Democratic issue. Gunmen don’t tend to stop their shooting to determine which side their victims are on. Republican parents have buried their children after school shootings. Even a Republican member of Congress has been shot while playing softball. Nothing changed. Clearly, the right’s fear of not being able to own a gun is far greater than their fear of having themselves or their children shot.

This is where I get stuck in my argument. I wouldn’t want anyone to ask me to risk my safety, so I respectfully refrain from asking them to risk theirs. I do wonder though how the gun owners feel after each of these school shootings. How do they make the equation work in their heads of allowing anyone at any time to buy a gun, as it is right now in North Carolina, with dropping off their little ones at school?

A man was doing some work on our house and wanted to share his opinions about how wrong it was to try and “take away people’s guns.” I mentioned how difficult it must be for little kindergartners to go through active shooter drills at school. He said, “they do that?” “Yes,” I said, “they are trying to give the kids some measure of safety when there is an active shooter.” “My daughter is in kindergarten,” he replied. “I didn’t know they were doing that.” Stunned would probably be a good way to describe his expression.

Will that be what tips the scales? When a gun owner’s child is the one figuring out where to hide when they hear gunshots at school? When that child has night terrors and severe anxiety, assuming they were one of the lucky ones to survive?

I think the nuance of the argument is about who is safe and who is unsafe. Not doing anything keeps gun owners feeling safe. Adding background checks and waiting periods would help keep children safe; sadly, at least for now, theirs is the safety we are willing to compromise.