Less than 24 hours after the mass shooting in Las Vegas many of us were able to move on without even a nod to the previous night’s tragedy.
One of the deadliest mass shootings in our history, and we Americans have become inured to the violence, it’s become so routine.
And predictable.
Here’s the running tally:
* Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn., 2012; 20 students, six teachers massacred.
* San Bernardino, 2015, 14 killed; 22 seriously wounded.
* The A.M.E. church in Charleston, S.C., 2015; nine killed.
* The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 2016, 49 killed; 58 wounded.
We shake our heads, send up a prayer — and go back to work. Because, really, what else is there to do?
Efforts on gun control have become futile. “Guns don’t kill; people do,” the National Rifle Association mocks. As if easy access to weapons has nothing to do with the fact that every single day 92 Americans die from guns. Add them all up and the number surpasses all the military deaths in our nation’s history. Yep, from the Revolutionary War to today’s conflicts in the Middle East.
Today, there are more than 300 million firearms floating around the United States, almost as many as our entire population of 321 million. Has it become a rite of passage that every American should own a gun? The NRA hopes so.
Family members of alleged shooter Stephen Paddock expressed shock Monday that the 64-year-old born and bred American would do such a thing.
Socially, he was unmoored. Casinos and hotels were his thrill. He had no job, no community. No checks and balances on his actions. No goals that gave his life purpose.
So it seems doubtful he was trying to “say” much Sunday other than he was sick of it all.
Paddock’s motive is irrelevant; what matters, is that he could see it through.
U.S. lawmakers need to get tough on gun manufacturers and distributors.
Yes, yes, that’s biting the hand that feeds them.
But we know, all too well, again, the consequence of doing nothing.
— Susan Lynn
