NOT AGAIN

For the second time in a month there has been a horrific mass shooting.   It happened in an elementary school in Texas, and this time the targets were mostly schoolchildren around 9 or 10 years old.  It was the second worst school shooting ever, and unlike the other recent shooting, the shooter was killed by the police and we may never know what his motive was.  

What is clear is that once again a uniquely American tragedy has taken place.   And once again there is little to no chance that anything will be done about it.  As Gizmodo pointed out today, prominent Republicans have already sent out tweets that read like they're all filling in the same form letter, sending out "thoughts and prayers" without offering a damn bit of possibility that their party could pass even the mildest form of gun control.  We know this because, after the last shooting at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in 2012, an attempt to pass an expanded background check failed in congress, and several states actually passed laws making it easier to get a gun.

Personally, I wish that our country could just get rid of the Second Amendment, considering that it was written when a gun could only be fired one shot at a time.  Then we could pass laws like they have in Europe or Japan.  (Japan has around 10 people die from guns each year, the US has around 30,000).  But I know that won't be happening anytime soon.  

But why not make gun ownership like car ownership?  Everyone knows that you don't just get to drive a car when  you turn 16, you have to prove that you can handle it responsibly because, obviously, a car driven recklessly is very dangerous.  So why can't we say the same thing about a gun?  Why not require potential gun owners to take a class in gun safety and then take a written and hands on test to prove that they can handle it securely?  Plus it should be pointed out that both of these shooters were 18 years old, why not say you can't buy a gun until you're 21, on a nationwide level?  Surely beer shouldn't be harder to get than an assault rifle.

Everything I just said in the last paragraph seems like common sense to me, but  common sense and this country's relationship with guns are very different.  During the pandemic, gun sales skyrocketed, and today there are more than guns owned than there are citizens.   And already right wing websites have started spreading conspiracies about this shooting being a "false flag", that is, faked by the government as an excuse to ban guns.  And inevitably the National Rifle Association will issue statements about how teachers should be armed, and how we need more "good guys" with guns.  Even those these two gunmen saw themselves as good guys.  And even those there was a security guard with a gun at the grocery store shooting, who wasn't able to stop the heavily armed gunman.

The depressing reality is that most Americans seem to have a short attention span when it comes to these shootings; we are saddened by them for a few days, and the world and the media move on.  And, while most Americans in polls express support for some of the laws that I just listed, they also  rate gun control as "low" in every list of issues that are important to them in elections.  And with the Republican party poised to retake congress this year, you can forget about any kind of common sense gun policy getting passed.  Right now, we live in the United States of the Nation Rifle Association, and little will change in the near future.