In Gun Debate, Two Sides Speak Different Languages Inside the Big Buck Sport Shop, where mounted moose and deer heads loom over rifles, handguns, targets and ammunition, the customers have no doubt: More gun laws will not save lives. Fifteen miles south, in the city of Pittsburgh, many confronted by a steady stream of gun violence are just as certain: To reduce the carnage, stricter gun control is needed. This divide has existed for decades, separating America into hostile camps of conservative vs. liberal, rural vs. urban. As the nation responds to the massacre of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., the gulf has rarely felt wider than now. After the gunman invaded an elementary school with a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and magazines of 30 bullets each, there was a brief moment of unity amid the nation's grief. Across partisan divides, politicians said something must be done about weapons based upon military designs. Many wondered if even the National Rifle Association would adjust its staunch opposition to gun control. Then both sides regrouped. With President Barack Obama pushing for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and memory lingering of Obama's divisive 2008 comment that some Americans "cling to guns and religion," positions hardened. Listening to the public discourse, and to citizens in places like Pittsburgh and the Big Buck Sport Shop, people seem to be speaking different languages entirely. Communication has broken down amid a flurry of accusations, denials, political maneuvering and catch phrases. "You have to place some people in the category of 'you cannot communicate with them,'" Big Buck salesman Dave Riddle said Friday, standing between a rack of rifles and a glass case full of used handguns. Their minds are set; they cannot change. A short drive away, at the New Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, editor and publisher Rod Doss pondered how to tell gun enthusiasts about his belief that assault weapons should be banned. "I don't know that they would hear me," Doss finally said. Their culture is totally different. They've grown up around guns. It's part of their life and their lifestyle. It's second nature. Hunting, shooting, it's the love of guns. Doss does not own a firearm: "I don't feel a need for any. I personally don't live in fear. His newspaper, which covers the African-American community, publishes detailed information on every Pittsburgh homicide because most are black-on-black crimes. "I'm awestruck with their fascination with guns," Doss said of his suburban and rural neighbors. When you look at it from that perspective, it's hard to relate to anything. Locally, nationally, even globally, this is the issue that places people at odds - a fact seen by the passionate, often angry conversations that are ringing out across the world in the days since the Newtown shootings. Harry Wilson, author of "Guns, Gun Control and Elections: The Politics and Policy of Firearms," sees common misperceptions on both sides. Wilson, a Roanoke College political science professor, would like gun control advocates to know: "Gun owners are not idiots. Gun owners are not in favor of gun violence. Gun owners are in many ways like them, and would genuinely like to see gun violence reduced. Obviously they have a different solution. But they're people too, just with different perspectives. And what I would want gun owners to know is, the large majority of people in favor of gun control don't really want to take all of your guns.