Our love-hate affair with firearms feeds on mind-numbing statistics that make little difference to our federal legislators and to the 38 percent of households that own 222 million guns.

Witness the recent Million Mom March at which 150,000 were expected and perhaps as many as 750,000 showed up. Participants stretched for a half-mile along the Washington Mall.

Speaker after speaker reminded us of those who have been killed or severely injured by guns. Once again we heard the numbers: the US has the highest overall gun mortality rate among the 36 most affluent nations; a gun in the home increases the probability by 300 percent that a household member will be killed and by 500 percent that a family member will commit suicide; US firearm deaths of children younger than 15 are greater than the combined rate in 25 other industrialized nations; and on and on and on.

How terrible, we say. But do these emotions and numbers make a difference? Sadly, they probably don’t.

On the side of those who favor gun rights, there are 3-million card-carrying members of the NRA who, through their organization, have contributed $8.4 million to congressional candidates during the past 10 years.

Since there are roughly 30,000 firearm-related deaths annually, slightly more than half of which are suicides, this contribution means that the NRA has effectively bought off Congress for just $28 for each suicide and homicide; $7 for each casualty if the 90,000 annual firearm related injuries are factored in. Isn’t it surprising that it didn’t cost the NRA more to buy Congress’s fealty?

Not fair, you say, because the NRA, in the name of the immutable second amendment, promotes guns, not death. They don’t like it when people die. They’re just trying to protect our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

Perhaps, but they have a strange way of showing they care, since they fanatically oppose changes that would make guns safer.

Ironically, it was Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, who said, during ABC’s March 12 "This Week" program, that: "I've come to believe that [President Clinton] needs a certain level of violence in this country. He's willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda...."

Does LaPierre think we’re stupid? Clearly, he’s the one who tolerates an unconscionable level of violence to further the NRA’s political agenda.

Lucky for us the British didn’t attempt to regulate horse traffic in the 1700s. If they had, our founding fathers might have included an eleventh amendment to the Bill of Rights: "A well regulated transportation system being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and drive vehicles shall not be infringed."

Notwithstanding the "well regulated" phrase which the NRA conveniently ignores, one could imagine that such an amendment would keep our governments from issuing driver licenses, controlling speeds and posting stop signs. Can you imagine the mess we’d be in?

That’s ridiculous, you say. It defies common sense to think we would not regulate a modern and dangerous invention, the automobile, that didn’t exist when our Constitution was written.

True, but our lack of gun regulation also defies common sense. Guns today are a far cry from what they were in 1787: A flintlock is as different from a Glock 9mm as a horse is from a Ford Mustang.

But common sense, Littleton-like murders and more mom marches will probably have little effect. A recent poll done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that men favor gun rights over control by 49 percent to 46 percent – pretty much equal numbers – while women favor gun control over gun rights by 67 percent to 28 percent.

Overall, 57 percent favor more control, 38 percent favor less, which suggests that moms might make the difference. Except that the 38 percent who oppose gun control (interestingly, the same number as the percentage of households owning guns) are frequently single-issue, well organized voters.

The person who has a gun in his closet or a handgun at his bedside feels safer, though common sense and numbers should convince him otherwise. He doesn’t want government prying into his affairs, and he will zealously oppose increased regulation until there is a socially responsible gun organization – obviously not the NRA – with a charismatic spokesperson – obviously not Charlton Heston – that can help him understand the importance of making guns a safe product that Americans can live – not die – with.