By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have begun to debate — once again — the issue of guns, the Second Amendment and whether we can find a way to stop the madness of gun violence.

I’ll have to acknowledge that it hasn’t started off well. Republicans in the Senate, namely Ted Cruz of Texas, already have begun demagoguing the matter into insanity.

In a span of a little more than a week, shooters opened fire in Atlanta and Boulder, Colo. Eighteen people died in both massacres. The suspects are in custody and have been charged with multiple counts of murder. I feel confident that justice will do its work with regard to these two individuals.

What gives me concern is whether Congress, President Biden and all the political interests involved in this matter will allow the debate to proceed without scare tactics, lies, and demagoguery.

As I have noted already, the first signals don’t bode well.

I believe firmly that there must be a legislative — or an executive — solution to the issue of restricting gun sales without infringing on the Second Amendment guarantee of firearm ownership. Ted Cruz seems to think that any effort to enact those restrictions inhibits “law-abiding citizens” from owning a gun. That, as I see it, is a preposterous notion, because citizens who obey the law would have zero cause for worry.

Cruz then went after Democrats for chastising those whose only solution is to offer “thoughts and prayers,” suggesting that Democrats belong to some sort of Godless organization. Ridiculous.

I want to hear from constitutional scholars — from both sides of the great divide — who can tell us whether there exists a legislative solution that (a) limits the ability of nut jobs to purchase a gun and (b) doesn’t violate the Second Amendment’s constitutional guarantee that allows us to “keep and bear arms.”

I also want to stipulate that I do not have any solutions to this quandary. I know, though, that this great country is full of learned men and women who can produce a remedy to what I consider one of this nation’s existential threats.

Gun violence has turned damn near every venue that we all enter — churches, grocery stores, schools, playgrounds — into potential killing grounds. It has to stop!