America No Closer To Gun Control As Mass Shootings Continue.
American life is now punctuated by gun violence with guns flooding every corner of the nation. (Washington Post)
“The shootings have touched nearly every imaginable slice of American life: A Black church in Charleston, S.C. (2015). A government-funded nonprofit center in San Bernardino, Calif. (2015). A gay nightclub in Orlando (2016). A country music festival in Las Vegas (2017). A high school in Parkland, Fla. (2018). A synagogue in Pittsburgh (2018). A Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso, followed just hours later by a shooting in a popular nightlife corridor in Dayton, Ohio (2019). Asian American massage businesses in Atlanta (2021).
And just a week ago, a racist attack at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo left 10 dead and thrust mass shootings back into the news.
In the nearly decade-long stretch between Sandy Hook and Buffalo, congressional efforts to change gun policies in any significant way have repeatedly failed, despite lawmakers occasionally commencing gun-control discussions anew in the wake of particularly harrowing gun tragedies. And Biden has played a central role in many of those unsuccessful efforts, first as vice president under Barack Obama and now as president.”
Gun control is a topic hotly debated in the week or two after a mass shooting that shocks the nation. After the initial horror dissipates America collectively compartmentalizes the shooting as just another aspect of American life in the 21st Century and moves on to the next media generated fire storm. Mass shootings that were particularly horrific move the needle on gun reform according to public opinion polls but any attempt at reigning in the gun culture completely dissipates as bills reach Capitol Hill. Therefore nothing can be done unless legislators begin showing extraordinary courage, that has yet to happen.
