It’s about mentally ill with a gun
To understand and comprehend the real driver behind the NRA and those Second Amendment people, you must understand that they want to have military grade guns because they want to be in the position to act out their fantasies of armed insurrection.
These people want to be as well armed as the police and the military so that they can effectively fight the policy and the military if there is ever an attempt to significantly change the gun laws so sensible and reasonable gun ownership policies can be put in place.
This is the kind of baseline reality that is routinely overlooked in the mainstream media. The guys who show up at NRA rallies in military gear with a .45 on their hip and an M-16 over their shoulder are actively planning on how they would kill police officers or National Guardsmen if there was ever an attempt to lawfully remove their right to own those guns.
This is simply and absolutely insane. The Second Amendment was written to provide for the raising of a well-regulated militia to fight enemies of the Republic, either foreign or domestic. It was not intended to give private militias the opportunity to kill law enforcement officers in the due course of their duty.
It might only be a fantasy, but it is the only genuine explanation for any civilian even wanting to own a military-grade, semi-automatic gun. The "freedom" they say they want is the freedom to kill cops before their guns are taken from their "cold, dead hands". They are simply and certainly insane.
I would never in my life come to visit the country I actually live in.
The real criminals are the legislators who refuse to take the necessary steps to protect schools!
Put Armed resources officers in every school, controlled access to schools, metal detectors, zero tolerance for idiots who post warnings or wear t-shirts with their message, immediate execution for those who attack schools.
Yet again there was warning of what this idiot planned and no one did anything!
And while we are at it, throw his father in jail for failing to protect his weapons.
The face of the school shooting is overwhelmingly white; persons who think for some reason, society owes them something. The same way the vast proportion of the white population decided to throw a collective tantrum in electing the idiot in charge. White terrorism is real, unannounced, not feared and though it should be.
The media won't call it though.
No solution to the gun problem can ignore the intense sense of entitlement white people in this country feel. Men, and women. For some reason, they feel that society owes them. It is a very definite sense of entitlement wrecking the country and the social fabric in different ways, but it is entitlement all the same. Until the media, the society at large calls this out, we will have a warped evolution as a society.
That's exactly why I don't see any hope for us as a country.
1
Reading this reminded me of your book "So Goes Texas ..." -- please never stop writing Ms. Collins.
21
Ms. Collins,
Sorry to say but we are already there and the quasi-terrorist NRA is in charge. Something like the NRA or even a Trump presidency would not exist in a progressive society, based on morals, integrity, values, and vision.
81
Gun control, for all the value it will have is analogous to Western medicine, i.e., treat the symptoms to affect the cure. That is one very necessary and valid approach, if to reduce the carnage in the future. However, it only masks the underlying rage and malcontent that makes these shootings all too commonplace.
Blaming the NRA is valid to an extent, but your fellow columnist Nicholas Kristof was taught proper respect and handling of guns by the NRA when a teenager and neither he, nor any students of the era went on these mad killing sprees.
So what is it? One simple cause, not likely. More the cumulative effect of a culture saturated in violence on television, too much in both real life in fiction. Movies aren't much better. Add hours with violent video games, maybe. Add overworked and stressed parents trying to keep a household going in an economy that's flat-lined for the middle class. Add our Sartre inspired feelings of existential nihilism, feeling we're nothing and nobody, and we want to be remembered for SOMETHING, even if it is horrible. In such isolation, the temptation to play "God" is obviously too easy a temptation to give into.
I don't have any easy answers. It is often far easier to diagnose then to prescribe the remedy. But I can offer we need a holistic approach, gun control, certainly, but an examination as to what is setting these mass shooters off is of equal importance. Otherwise the rage and malcontent will only find another outlet.
22
Speaking as a former soldier please consider that it is the preparation of the mind to kill that is far more important then the tool he uses. It could well become the mode where vehicles are the weapon of choice to mass kill innocent children.
America's glorification of violence from video games where a child is taught to confront challenges by killing vicariously to the honoring of our military heroes who kill to protect our sources of oil and influence have created an environment where killing an adversary is the norm. A child brought up with these values will naturally apply them to remedy his perceived slights. When a President publicly brags that he has a bigger killing button than his adversary he reveals trumping an adversary with violence is national ideal.
173
SEND A STRONG MESSAGE.
A simple and meaningful solution is for all Republicans of good conscience to change their political registration as Republican to Democrat or Independent.
Do this and send a real message that enough is enough and do it before the elections in November of 2018.
What is more important - our children or the NRA and its enabler the wishey washey Trump.
Put the threat of your vote where your good sense and your heart happen to be.
23
We have birthed a monster. The real problem is that the behavior is now firmly rooted in American culture thanks to our long-standing culture of everyone should have a gun.
It’s no longer a problem that gun laws can resolve because the problem is now in us. Specifically, white males. It’s ironic that the idiotic lie propagated by the NRA, that guns don’t kill people, that people kill people, has come true.
22
Leave it to Gail Collins to point out the obvious that everyone knows. Again.
12
On Jan. 20, 2017, #45 thundered, "The carnage would stop now". Mr. President, when is NOW?
26
Looks like our children have become sacrificial “lambs”for the NRA.SAD
30
And the shooter could find the guns he needed to destroy lives ... right inside his own home.
33
How about the media stop wasting citizens time reporting and burdening them with this nonsense. It’s a tragic problem, politicians don’t want to deal with it, forget it, or actually DO something instead of exploiting it for financial gain! If the media believes it is as bad as it is, and it is, perhaps, you all can for once actually advocate for what’s right instead of “reporting” it “neutrally,” as if being neutral or “objective” is not a political position!!! Stop pretending to be concerned while making money from these tragedies!!!!
7
Only in the USA do people tolerate the massacre of children in schools. And so the massacres continue. USA is the greatest.
27
Donald Trump is a weak person who cannot stand up to anybody. He blusters a lot. He lies even more. All he wants is approval, whether he deserves it or not. He does not understand what he has to do to get that approval. Pity.
28
What more is there to say? We have tried everything from logic to shame to empathy to sympathy to get gun nuts to let go of their dangerous toys, to no avail. They must have their lethal weapons that make them feel safe and powerful, no matter what. Oh, but they know what they are doing. My Dad nearly blew my Mom's head off, but for a few seconds after she walked away...he didn't know it was loaded. Oops. The consequences of a small mistake are just too great. Lock your guns up so kids won't get them. Please, this is laughable. Kids are smart and will get into anything you think they can't. I guess rambling inchoherently like this is not helping, either. My mind and heart are shattered.
26
President Clinton would have had the courage to do something. President Trump is too much of a coward to do anything.
28
Of there are several ways to stem this madness. Let's try all of them. Get the media to tone down the reporting, even though these are ratings bonanzas and bring in the big bucks. Get the media to resist turning these miserable creatures into stars. We need an advertisement campaign that shows us what these gun enthusiasts really are - sexually inadequate and potential killers.
9
The day after Sandy Hook,I went to work and said to anyone who would listen that if the sight of a classroom of first graders and 6 of their female teachers cut to pieces didn't move these beasts in Washington to action, nothing ever would.I HATE being right.
55
We are a country that sells guns to everybody in the world where hundreds of people get shot and killed everywhere on earth every day. It happens here too..in schools..on the streets..everywhere all the time. If you want a gun, call the U.S.A.
17
Once again, our cowardly representatives offer their hypocritical prayers for the victims of yet another school shooting. We don't need their prayers and "words of support." What we need, what our children need is and end to the carnage, and that end will never come as long as the NRA literally calls the shots.
22
Forget the gun issue for a minute: When a teen boy who everyone describes as a "loner" starts coming to school in trench coats and writing threatening language in social media, someone needs to pay attention and the kid needs to be helped. I'm not sure who failed here, but the school, the parents and even the kid's acquaintances at school all share some of the blame. We're talking about a minor - he has less right to privacy than an adult. Someone needed to start looking into his social media use, for example, and maybe asking him what he was carrying under that trench coat.
Back to the guns: The father who left them where this troubled teen could get them is as responsible for the deaths as the kid. Another reason why we need guns to be coded so that only the owner can use them, simply because too many people are just too irresponsible to be trusted with deadly weapons.
29
But many in this country have already gotten used to incessant gun violence. If they hadn’t we would have solved this by now. Most of the articles in the Times today could have been written by reporters assembling a pastiche of paragraphs from files on their hard drives.
We’ve seen shooters from all backgrounds. Some mentally disturbed, others clearly sane; Caucasian, Hispanic, Arabic, Black, and now Greek; rich and poor; old and young. The clear common denominator in all these was a gun. No, lots of guns. When will we face that fact and roll back the obscene stockpile of lethal weapons in this country?
To the NRA and it’s supporters, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct. But what happens when your cherished right to bear arms meets my Constitutional desire for domestic Tranquillity? When your fondling your gun meets my inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Until we take back the conversation and stop ceding the moral high ground to agents of death, we will continue to read more stories of carnage.
26
As long as you (anyone) believe Trump has the ability to
Change you enable him to bring down on us and our children
The disease of the NRA .10 more are dead and congress does nothing and Presidents do nothing,and we “call our congressional representatives, and write same, over and over
And over.Im 80 and I began those letters and calls when Kennedy was murdered.It doesn’t work ,it never will.As long as the corrupt depend on Gun Money our children will die and so will we.My Republican Senator received more then 3,000,000.
From NRA.As far as I know, he didn’t return it.The name is Portman.The figure was published in the NYTimes.Money talks
Not dead children.
26
After Sandy Hook we decided that we'd rather have dead children than gun laws. The rest is predictable, and will continue to be so....
44
The media is shunning an enormous responsibility to keep the heat on for sane gun safety/control laws. Yet again, the news channels light up with attention-gathering stories when the awful event occurs, only to fall silent until the next gun massacre. Look at the all-too-brief interval between the Parkland and Santa Fe shootings. The courageous Parkland students put on a full-court press that was widely publicized and reinforced by students and parents around the country. It was important news everywhere.
Then what happened? The good news is that a few state legislatures took limited action to increase gun safety locally, but the U.S. Congress yet again sat on its hands. Trump bloviated after Parkland for perhaps 12 hours and then got on to generating more fake news and headlines about his real interests. He is doing the same thing with Santa Fe, while Ryan and McConnell look deeply concerned and do nothing. We still don't have bump stock legislation! It's outrageous.
But what is even more outrageous is that yet again the media is going with the flow, dropping the ball into a black hole and calling for another from the ball rack. It must do more. For the good of the country, the media must stay focused on gun safety day in and day out, keeping it on the front page, on social media, and on the evening news incessantly. The media must step up to the plate, stop bunting and walking, and swing for the bleachers. This is a national imperative.
6
If you are serious about preventing more shootings...then begin to protect schools with armed guards, including at least some school employees. You don't see mass shooting at police stations, do you...?
Punish the suppliers. Including the parents. Until we have gun safety laws, which seems a long way off, punish those parents arrogant and thoughtless enough to think that their child is incapable of this. All teenagers are unstable. Put the parents, shopkeepers, trade show jerks - anyone who makes a gun accessible to someone who chooses senseless violence - under the jail. At least then maybe some people will take greater care with their lethal weapons. People will say this family lost their son too, but the blood truly is on the hands of this father, probably as much as the son who made this deadly choice. Until the GOP relents we have to make it harder and we have to spread the punishment.
21
For a (school) shooting to happen, two ingredients are needed: a gun and a person who considers shooting people to be a more or less acceptable way of making a point. Availability of guns has been extensively discussed, but I do see not much debate about how the minds of the potential shooters could become so incredibly distorted. Could it be that the apparent lack of restraint shown by these shooters is caused by them being exposed to images of (lethal) violence from their earliest days on through news shows, movies, shooting games, etc? I remember that, when I was a teenager, dead bodies were not shown in the media. And showing a dying person was completely off limits. However, today there seem to be no boundaries any more. When our youngsters are exposed to these matters on a daily basis, especially in entertainment settings, we should not be surprised if they start to think that taking a life is not much worse than kicking someone’s butt.
5
In same-day opinion article ("How Congress Has Dithered as the Innocent Get Shot") is a calendar of U.S. shootings since January 2013 that resulted in four or more deaths and injuries. There were a total of about 1600 such incidents, almost 25 per month on average. That means there were at least 6400 casualties over 5 years, and assuming reasonable statistical variations, probably well over 10,000.
The article did not give the breakdown of data into deaths and injuries, but if we could assume 2 or 3 deaths per incident this data would indicate between 3200 and 4800 deaths in mass shootings since 2013. That is roughly commensurate with U.S. military deaths in the peak 5 years of the Iraq war. (I did some googling for this data.) We were appalled by that, but what about our domestic war?
My analysis is seat-of-the-pants, but it doesn't seem that far-fetched. Can't the NYT do a more thorough job with the data used for their table?
4
We already are used to it.
9
What's more powerful that POTUS, SCOTUS, Congress. Look, up in the sky, its' a bird, it's a plane, no it's the gun lobby. Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap over every branch of government. Their answer to the gun carnage is simple: MORE GUNS. Let's not only arm teachers, let's arm all students and turn schools into Tombstone Territory. Sorry, Gail, but we better get used to this because the gun lobby TRUMPS everything.
11
We made a pact with the devil and we decided that it was a "right" for every American to own an assault weapon. This "right" was much more important than the right for our children to live.
Sadly, we are too stupid to see beyond the insanity of that sentence and we have our Legislature, Judicial and Executive branches walking in lockstep with the NRA in total disregard to prevailing wisdom.
I'm not even sure these individuals would stand up for reason even if it were their children who lay dead in their caskets.
Of course, there was a totally different direction when Reagan was shot, maybe someone should shot trump :).
11
America: Making It Worse Again
I married a Canadian and have lived in Canada for over 30 years. During the W. Bush years, I barely could recognize what was devolving down below. Now, this is truly an empire in rapid decline. Unbridled commerce tethered to a corrupt and immoral political system headed by a megalomaniac who cares for nothing outside of his very small orbit of blind deluded foolowers. The world use to look to the U.S. for leadership. No longer. This is not going well, unfortunately for all those in the world sucked into its orbit.
25
Gun control advocates at the NYT are ok with this level of gun violence so they can stand on the caskets and graves of the dead and propose more laws that will not enforce. All of the proposed laws that the paper of record has proposed would not have stopped ANY of the mass shootings in the past 50 years, but it will get the government a list of law abiding gun owners to track and later confiscate their guns.
Too late - we already are.
8
in re: please never get used to this: Too late.
2
1/17/89. stockton california. the assault weapons ban seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction to this violence. today we know school killings make no difference to congress, especially republicans. in 89 almost all of those killed were cambodian refugees. today our president and republicans would care even less..... they would not have been considered part of his voting or donor base. as i write these words they seem harsh..... but as i review? they are 100% accurate. most of our leaders put the NRA over the dead bodies of school kids.
7
Lets make parents responsible for their under age kids’ lethal actions and see how safe it gets. You can have your guns as long as you keep them out of the hands of kids at all costs.
4
All the well-meaning thoughts and prayers from GOP lawmakers and the NRA should go toward something concrete.
Time to build a memorial to all the children killed in school shootings. It will have to be really big, with lots of space for new additions.
It could be erected on the National Mall, right next to the WWII memorial, and in front of the White House. That way, the president could see from the Oval Office in one vista, a monument to America's greatest triumph, and one to America's greatest defeat.
7
Guns kill at a distance. Knives don’t. Killing with a gun is easy and impersonal. Killing with a knife is gory and personal. Consequently, more people are killed by guns than knives.
All guns are not equal. A pistol cannot be wielded in an heroic manner. Pistols are for women and sissies. A long-barreled hunting rifle is awkward to handle. Hunting rifles are for dads and granddads.
A shotgun wielded by a boy/man wearing a cloak evokes an avenging movie hero. A shotgun is the preferred weapon for boy/men with a fetish for dark clothing, boots, and cloaks.
A military-style assault rifle wielded by a boy/man evokes the action heroes of fantasy videos and games. A semi-automatic rifle with pistol grip and detachable magazine is the weapon of choice for SWAT teams and boy/men with killing fantasies.
Immature, hate-indoctrinated, or mentally unstable boy/men should not own or have access to military-style assault weapons. Boy/men who are inexperienced or untrained in gun-handling and gun safety, or show signs of fetish for military dress, should not have unsupervised access to guns.
6
How could this happen? I thought Texas was full of "good guys with guns" who would keep this from happening--one of the reasons I have no desire to ever go there. Hmmm, life is more complicated than I thought. Now we'll have to reduce the number of doors. What's an architect to do?
12
We can only begin to achieve gun restrictions after we remove our NRA bought and paid for President and Congress from office
America is our country and We must take it back from them.
9
Americans can only stop this at the ballot box. How many voters are concerned enough to never vote for a politician who has received a campaign donation from the NRA?
9
Do you truly think this will ever stop? We outlawed drugs decades ago. How did that work out? Politicians of all parties spew hatred day in and day out in the mainstream and alternative medias. Social media provides an outlet for every angry nutjob with a rant to deliver. The Hollywood hypocrites lecture us on the evils of guns while profiting mightily from endless movies with endless gun violence. An "adult film actress" and her attorney parlay a one night stand years ago into a never-ending media circus that the media gobbles up. and so on. The national freak show continues. "Let's never get used to it?" I think had better get used to it. I think most of the population already is used to it.
3
Well written article. But I wish it would have dealt more with holding the President, republicans in general, gun manufactures, and lastly the NRA and it's members with their complicity in murder. These spineless hypocrites who worship the owning of a gun more than they do the lives of innocent children are fond of saying their prayers go out to the families. What incredible pathetic nonsense. Nothing will change until we remove these people from office, declare the NRA a terrorist organization, and take steps to enact sensible gun laws. I watched a royal wedding today with the bride and groom riding in a open carriage throughout the streets of England without incident. Can anyone imagine the president and his cowardly minions doing so here, without their massive protection details surrounding them, never mind in an open car. We have become a sick society witnessing daily carnage by guns that it will stop. Prayer never stopped anything.
7
If Sandy Hook wasn't enough to wrench guns out of the fists of the rabid gun rights advocates, nothing ever will be.
11
Please why not get used to this?
The 2nd Amendment makes this inevitable. And while the number of mass shootings is rising, of the 33,000 Americans who die from gunshot every year, about 2/3rds are suicides of whom 80% are white men. We have gotten used to and accepted that deadly reality.
3
A good way to begin the ending of gun violence would be to vote out of office any federal, state, or local official who takes any money from the NRA. Democrat or Republican. Not a dime. No excuses.
11
Gun Zealots and their political machine have used a perverted interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to beat, bully, or brainwash the American public into a position where the only solutions to the Pandemic of gun violence, unique in the world to the US, that are discussed are marginal measures at best.
The problem IS GUNS. The US is awash in a sea of guns and it is absolutely statistically correlated that the more guns per capita in a country, the higher the Gun fatality death rate will be. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/21/17028930/gun-violence-....
We can pick at the edges of marginal solutions, basically akin to taking a couple of aspirin for a metastatic brain tumor, or we can decide to vote for representatives who will support the only real solutions:
Drastically reduce the number of guns in circulation,through buy back programs, outlaw private ownership of semi-automatic firearms
Require registration and liability insurance for any remaining all privately owned firearms.
Hunters and target shooters can own bolt action rifles or a pump action shotgun.
Anyone who is not law enforcement or licensed private security, with a semi-auto or automatic firearm will be easily identifiable as an outlaw.
The entitlement to own lethal semi-automatic firearms needs to be subordinated to the right of Americans to live in an environment that is safe to a degree that is comparable to other developed, civilized nations that are not war zones.
9
As much as people want this to be true, want there to be a simple solution, it just isn’t so.
Sure, gun laws, carefully crafted gun laws that is, of which there are too few examples in the national debate, might help some around the edges. But angry men making public threats and being ignored will still be out there. Communities abandoned by police and treated as hostile war zones will still be out here. And guess what? Hundreds of millions of guns will still be out there.
Pick your villain and denounce the NRA or gun owners, or anyone but your own preferred friends and political choices. Ignore the racism of Metropolitan areas, and the income inequality issues that hey breed. Forget about police reform into true public safety organizations. It is a lot easier that way.
1
"When exits are outlawed, only outlaws will have exits."
5
As to the "schools have too many doors" comment, recall that in Santa Fe's art classroom, a student tried to run outside but the door was locked and so she and others hid in the closet where the gunman shot at them through the door. Maybe you need bullet proof doors or maybe you need some effort at effective gun control, which work in every country where they are tried.
7
The most rational arguments about controlling guns even in keeping with all the intended provisions of the 2nd Amendment will never change a single mind among the gun fanatics.
The only way to modify gun control laws to provide sensible levels of safety to all citizens is to remove the Republican Party from power and change the balance of the right wing Roberts majority of the Supreme Court. The NRA dictates their completely hands-off policies to the GOP for cash. Any American who wants to protect the lives of young people from further mass assassinations in schools must vote out the Republican Congress ASAP. There is no alternative.
8
To even consider that our current president cares or has any compassion is absurd. He doesn’t, his base doesn’t, his fans don’t. Period. They don’t care or even understand about protecting an environment that is already negatively impacting THEM and their families. There is no hope.
5
We are, anyone care to hazard a guess were next weeks shooting will be?
3
Sorry Gail, it's too late, we're used to it already. Unless and until we repeal the second amendment, gun deaths are, as Bill O'Reilly put it, "the price of freedom," and worthy of no more notice than a house fire or car crash.
5
I don't understand the "thoughts and prayers" crowd. Ok, the thoughts could be useful if consideration of the problem leads to action to help reduce these atrocities. But the prayers? What are people praying for, after the fact? Why not pray that the killing stops to begin with? Think about that the next time you think your prayers are doing any good.
5
It’s all about the Royal Wedding today. Pretty much tells you where peoples’ interests lie. VOTE. Vote every pro-gun politician out of office if you hope for change. Make gun reform the #1 election issue.
6
If the weapons used belong to the father, he also has to be charged .
8
I hate the NRA.
They set the tone and frame the issue as "us against them". They invite rabble rousers to their convention which is "dignified" by the rabble rouser in chief--Trump--as he spouts offs about second amendment rights. The media broadcasts this horror which spreads and infects our country.
When the bullets have stopped flying, when hollow and meaningless thoughts and prayers are dutifully tweeted, and, finally, when the children who survive the carnage decide to speak out, Fox News brands them as civil terrorists.
"Us against them." "Good guys with guns against bad guys with guns."
I hate the NRA.
8
Sadly, this violence is deeply embedded in the American history and culture. Perhaps, a part of it's DNA. The US has the highest level of gun ownership in the world. This culture of violence is evidenced by mass shootings and one of the highest incareceration raetes as well. It will be extremely hard if not impossible to overcome this defining trait of American society.
4
In addition to the knee-jerk "thoughts and prayers" ritual, there's the knee-jerk attempt to assign blame to cockamamie causes-- computer games, television and movie violence, too many building entrances.
This is a pattern of misfiring, too, a kind of "shooting from the hip" made popular by Trump and his administration.
Meanwhile, valid studies related to gun violence and possible corrections are ignored.
Meanwhile, a serious conversation about the meaning of the 2nd amendment doesn't happen.
As Yeats famously wrote, "the worst are full of passionate intensity," and nowadays that is what passes for "reasoning" among those in a position to change policies.
5
The the NRA and its supporters the continuing deaths of thousands of children are acceptable collateral damage for the growing profits of the gun manufacturers.
4
Remember Joe Hill's words. Having been convicted of a murder he didn't commit, and about to be executed, he supposedly said,
"Don't mourn. Organize!"
3
Perhaps nothing is being done about school shootings because the Republicans are trying hard to destroy our public school systems.....
3
There actually is one thing that we've gotten used to which could be changed: the image of the accused shooter appearing in the media, including in today's edition of the NY Times. Why don't the publishers of the Times and other major media outlets get in touch with each other and start a little conspiracy -- we will no longer assist psychopaths in their quest for five minutes of fame by showing pictures of them in our publications.
5
I was just reminding my wife of the fact that when automobiles were becoming available the newspapers headlines were touting the evil of these monstrous, evil machines that were causing death and destruction...now, of course, 40,000 people die every year in car accidents with barely a mention (unless you know the victim)...so, yes, people will get used to it (or, as many have written, already have)...we can only hope we have/will not...
3
Voters need to strike back and not vote for any candidate that accepts money from the NRA.
That money would be better spent providing school security.
2
I'm done talking about it, for this reason: people keep voting in legislators who proudly claim they will do nothing to toughen gun laws. It has been proven time and again that those states with strict gun laws have few — if any — mass shootings. So you know what Texas? Florida? Keep shooting each other. Keep shooting each other until there's either no one left to shoot or you finally wake up and vote for a candidate who is going to support common sense tough, gun laws.
5
“I don’t have anything original left to say.” A fitting sentence for a now common occurrence in the U.S. How is such horror commonplace? How much longer will our ‘leaders’ rage in phony disbelief before we, the people, put a stop to their two-faced lies by voting them out? Thoughts and prayers don’t prevent the disturbed from committing heinous crimes, and our votes should stop the weak willed politicians in charge from their continual enabling of mass murders.
4
Of course we need to implement all the common sense gun safety measures (background checks, etc.), and that will require voting Republicans out. But something larger is needed.
Frankly, we need to stigmatize guns the way we made it uncool to smoke. Guns are disgusting. The whole idea of wanting to own devices for blowing holes in other people's bodies is disturbing and deranged.
Even hunting is immoral. Torturing a kitten to death would get you arrested. But blasting a hole in a deer, leaving him to run in pain and terror until he bleeds to death, is a time-honored pastime. Isn't that sick?
I simply won't associate with people who fetishize deadly weapons, or shop in stores that sell them.
6
We live in a sick society. A substantial percentage of the population thinks guns, even military assault weapons, should be available to purchase with virtually no background check, from voting age on. That is sick.
And we live in a society of angry people, who react to our competitive economic system, where it seems that nobody has your back and the wealthy have nothing but disdain for the lower half, with latent hatred. Which then spews out in Nazi symbolism or shockingly violent, unpredictable actions.
Gun policy and the cultural zeitgeist all are wrapped around these tragedies. Promoting vigilantes with concealed weapons, as the NRA would have us do, is a predictable diversion from the issues which plague us.
5
America has gone from being "Our Town" to children thinking that when the school shooting happens to them it is "Our Turn."
When you send your children off to school in the morning is this what you want them to be thinking? At their funerals will you simply ruefully agree that it was "just their turn"?
Nothing you could have done.
137
I'm pulling my kids out of school. Schools are no longer safe by any measurement for children. We'll home school them rather than place them in danger. Is it the fault of the NRA? Is it the fault of gun owners? Is i the fault of Congress? Is it the fault of gun sellers? Is it the fault of the mental health system? It is everybody's and nobody's fault. Recurrent mass shooting is a symptom of a sickness of our American society. Everything else, including the final common pathway, the shooting of innocents, is a symptom of this illness. It is up to us to understand the illness. If we fail to understand this social disease, we will never successfully treat it.
1
It's not a new argument, but if guns aren't a problem, then we should remove carry restrictions from government buildings, After all, they are well-patrolled, and I'm sure their entrances and exits are well within the accepted amount. I'm sure all of these gun advocates would breathe a sigh of relief that their Second Amendment rights are no longer being trampled at their workplaces.
9
I think it’s time that we start thanking HS students and teacher for their service. They are risking their lives everyday to get/give an education so that are country can be a better place. Their sacrifice needs to be honored and their day-to-day is now twice as dangerous in 2018 than it is to be an active military personnel.
6
But – we are already used to it. We marinate in it. It permeates our culture. It is who we are. Many (most?) people think it is the price of freedom. So…another one down; now we wait. Two weeks? Two months? It’s already out there just waiting to happen…
5
While I completely agree with this, I'm afraid it's too late - it's become a "norm". Until we get real, dedicated, public servants into our government - no real solutions will be done. Right now, they've all got blinders on. They are afraid to cross the NRA, they're afraid to roll up their sleeves and dig into mental health issues, they're afraid to clarify/ amend the 2nd amendment to todays needs (i.e., a an example, there's absolutely NO need whatsoever for the public to have access to military type weapons). All 3 of those things need to be addressed to make real progress to stop all these shootings.
6
When the president is in front of the NRA he promises to preserve the status quo. He did the same on the campaign trail to get gun enthusiasts cheering.
But after the Parkland shooting he wanted to act as if he cared, so he told police he thought they should seize guns even if they didn’t have the right to do so (“due process later,” said the man charged with defending the constitution) and told Murphy he was going to stand up to the NRA (because where others weak and afraid Trump strong and brave!).
Words. That’s all it is. He says whatever he needs to say when it’s most convenient to the people he’s currently seducing. And when the music stops it doesn’t matter what private assurances he may have given, Trump loves the one he’s with. Trump’s professed concern for the children imperiled by gun violence is the same as his concern for children depending on DACA or seeking refuge from the Syrian Civil War... it exists mostly in the abstract. What’s real to Trump is that students, immigrant children and Syrian refugees can’t pay him (in donations or votes) to care about their concerns. The NRA can. Evangelical opinion-makers can. Alt-right immigration hawks can.
And if that sounds a bit cruel to you, remember that Trump’s running a BUSINESS here, not a country.
12
If prayers are to be offered, mine will be that the virus of American gun culture ( maybe I should write “ American culture”) be contained and not be allowed to infect the rest of the world. America seems to be going through a latent civil war. Look at who is doing the dying, who is arming the killers, and who is proposing a twisted, broken definition of freedom to justify all this. During the Cold War, much treasure, sweat and blood was expended to halt the spread of communism because it was viewed as contrary to the health and happiness of the world . Regretfully, I now see American culture as a threat to the happiness of the world.
6
One way to drive this home hasn't been tried. Publish pictures of the victims in the media, and send these photos to every member of congress, and every state legislative body. I know this is traumatic to friends and families of the victims, but it may be the only way for the rest of us to feel that same trauma. Images of dead and dying children in war zones can change the tone, and change hearts and minds. It caused Trump to bomb Syria twice. Our public schools are now war zones, and it may take more than body counts to cause real change.
6
Thank you Gail. The problem is guns. Period. And it is up to the U.S. Congress to fix it.
10
It is not only about guns but any object that can harm school kids. Guns, knives and other dangerous objects ought to be banned from public schools. Any child with access to a firearm or in posesssion of a dangerous object like a knife ought to simply be suspended.Only books, school material, lunch , a phone and prescribed medication, and other harmless material should be allowed. Children from households that have a gun should be disallowed from entering public schools. The parents are free to home school their kids or put them in a private school. Public schools need to get tough on safety
2
No matter how angry or depressed I am at the news of the day, I know that Gail will find humor in it somewhere. And yet there is none here. There cannot be. And that tells us how hopeless we feel.
The nra should be treated as a greedy industry lobbying agency, a conduit for foreign campaign contributions, and a terrorist organization. If you know someone who is a dues paying member, shun them. If your representatives accept contributions, vote them about of office. Become a one issue voter, and choose this one. It is far past the time that we should listen to these people and show any respect whatsoever for their uninformed, paranoid ignorance.
6
With the millions of guns in homes across America, unless you plan on going door to doors& taking them, I don’t know what you do. Even if gun sales were banned starting now, there’d still be mass shootings. I want to make just one observation. I’m in my 60s & when I was in high school, you’d talk to your teachers about hunting & if you got a new shotgun, the teacher would go out to the parking lot at lunch to admire & hold your new prize possession . There were no school shootings in the 60/70s—why? Our culture / society has become so coarse, so violent, so evil, gun violence is only the tip of the iceberg. Our soul is dying, we need to address issues that go way beyond guns.
2
I look at the photograph of a young man who does not appear as a potential killer. What happened to this young Greek teen in high school, or before? Was he bullied, mocked? Again his father was the legal owner of the guns he took to go to his former school to wreak some kind of revenge. We suppose this. What's the common denominator in all these horrible shootings? Guns. Most of us go through tough times but we do not go to kill others for our own troubles. I agree: no more prayers. It is past time for action on both the federal, as the states will not do this, and national level.
2
An average American school student is suffused with too much girth around the waist owing to lack of physical exercise & too much attitude of insolence that manifest quite vividly due to internet knowledge.
With great pride,arrogance,an a swaggering gait of head held high,with smugness of all knowing attitude the students walk around.
That’s when the overinflated balloon of conceit & ego gets deflated.
The result,the need for vindictive retribution.
What better than to empty the Gun.
The head was always empty anyways.
2
Great article, caused me several thoughts:
Banning some guns will do as much to stop such outrages as banning Subarus will do to stop drunk driving. There is much more to the problem.
Where is the discussion on the "copy cat" elements of school shootings? Don't they all look drearily like Columbine? Can't the media tamp back on the 24x7 coverage, splashing the perp's face and name nationwide? To some infamy is better then ignominy. Here's the formula for a glorious finish [down to the recent tutorial on using the fire alarm as a distraction]. Thanks, CBS, NBC, Fox, WaPo, NYT and friends.
Finally, what's the selective outrage all about? 10 horrible deaths in a Texas school is a normal Saturday night in Chicago. Young black men and boys are being slaughtered all over the country, and their stories don't make it past page 3 of the Metro section. Why don't we care about that? Not enough bodies in one spot to roust the camera crews out?
Or about the teenage drivers who die in traffic accidents every year with half finished text messages on their phones? They are just as dead.
These don't make the school shootings any less awful, but focusing entirely on schools - and using them as an excuse to grab up guns - seems a little disingenuous to me.
1
Hug your children and tell them you love them ---- not just to be loving, but to send them off to school in hopes that they will return to you safely at the end of day.
This carnage is what is making America great again?
3
Thank you, Gail. Bottom line in 33,000 gun deaths a year...no gun no crime. Whether a gun is “legal” or not doesn’t change a thing.
3
Parents, lock your guns.
If you can't even do that, I suggest prosecution for criminal negligence and endangering the well-being of a minor.
Isn't at least THAT kind of obvious?
8
Barbarism is winning in this country. We can make no claim to enlightenment or compassion. Racism, the murder of our children, the denial of health care to millions, the refusal to allow women to manage their own bodies, "Christian" hypocrisy, the lack of ethics and morality at the highest levels of our government, the list goes on and on. I am ashamed of my own country.
5
I will never "get used to this" or feel this is "way too normal".
However, what I am "used to" and feeling "way too normal" is the hollow and insincere rhetoric and promises many of our elected officials continue to yap about immediately after a massacre like this occurs, but yet nothing is ever done or changes.
3
The reason we have to get used to this is that we have a Congress that is bought and paid for by the gun manufacturers and their chief promoter and spokesperson the NRA.
So how can we change that? Simple. Vote all of those congressmen that will not support gun control out of office.
Now strangely enough, the media carries a large responsibility for the present situation. How? Once again, simple. They are the ones who actually have the tools the correct the problem but they don't use them.
All they have to do is:
1. Do some research and get the names of all thos congressmen who won't support gun control.
2. Publish and broadcast those names. Often. On a regular basis.
3. Keep reminding their audiences to register to vote and to make a note of those congressmen that the media has shown that will not do anything about gun control.
4. On election day publish and broadcast the names of the offending congressmen all day long.
If you get any resistance from those congressmen you might remind them of the dead kids. It might help but I doubt it. It hasn't so far.
4
The media has done this. Over and over, and, well, over. Voters don't care.
1
I never pray. The practice was invented to reinforce belief that nature has some kind of personality that empathizes with humans and engages in fickle interventions in our affairs. Praying is fundamentally juvenile and invariably futile.
4
Two thoughts among many:
Where and how is the *well-regulated* part of the second amendment being implemented?
Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. Restrict the sale and accessibility of bullets, particularly the fragmenting kind. Treat them as noxious substances, poisons over which great care must be taken.
2
When people get shot, is about the shooter, not the gun.
Nothing will stop it improve until we realize that. We must not tolerate crime. The Democrats love crime: for instance, they got governors to allow felons to vote, and want to make illegal immigrants citizens.
Many of the "shooters" had guns illegally. So we already know that making things illegal won't stop them from happening. What will stop crime is jailing criminales and putting crazy people in insane asylums.
So, Mr. McDonald, you're proposing that we put the person in jail -- and/or the insane asylum -- before he or she commits an illegal act or becomes insane.
You might consider calling that "Anticipatory Retaliation."
2
Get used to it, unless the 2nd Amendment is modified to include tight control of weapons by citizens.
USA society has evolved and it is far too dangerous for the kind of weapons access there is today.
2
This will never end. Never. Unless the world ends first.
2
The NYT Editorial Board listed all the dithering Congressional inactions since Sandy Hook. Dozens of gun safety proposals have been advanced and rejected. Instead, we have prayer and search for a motive. In any crime, there is means, motive and opportunity. With gun violence, the motive is the least important variable. Private ownership of guns IS NOT AN INHERENT RIGHT and should be abolished over a fairly quick timetable beginning with military grade assault weapons and urban / suburban zip codes.
4
Read Kristof's piece.
There are lots of things we could do IF we had the will. We do not, divided we stand. Because the political system is polarized, reform is impossible. The right has used redistricting to create "guns safe zones." These districts are safely Republican where the winner is chosen in the primary not the general election. This allows the pro-gun lobbyist to cull the herd. In addition the campaign finance laws favor the gun industry who can easily funnel $$ to these candidates.
We can't fix any problem until we fix our political house. That can't happen until 45 is gone and the Republican party is out of power.
Republicans as an institution no longer believe in government as a source of good in society. To various extents they have been running against government since Hoover. With all the levers of power in their hands they are dismantling the regulatory state at a frightening rate.
Locke's "civil body politics" stipulates we join as a society to become safer. We give up some of our rights, (do do what we want when ever we want), to become safer. Republicans prefer a libertarian view of every man for himself. You can only be safe if you have a gun. That is not a society but chaos. Furthermore there is no leadership,only a devil's bargain. As long as he backs their extremist agenda they will gratify his ego and let him sell this country to the highest bidder. We now have a nation of men, not laws.
Sadly many more will die PLEASE VOTE 2018.
2
Too late. In my workplace this is one subject oddly that both Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on. Don't touch guns. Disgusting but true. Several of my colleagues with radical views have concealed carry permits and are the last people, if it were up to me, who would have guns.
2
This is the first time Gail has not used humor to address a horrific event. Gail obviously you understand that humor helps normalize behavior, so you may want to start treating the treason of Trump, et. al. seriously so we don't just shrug our shoulders at his behavior.
As far a killing our children, nothing will stop it because there is a great deal of money to be made in the gun industry, its called capitalism.
3
Too late. We ARE used to it, and we don't care. That's why we keep voting republicans into office.
3
The way to get effective gun control in the country is for liberals and minorities to organize gun clubs. Only then will the right wing respond in ways that make sense to help stem our massacres-in-schools problem. They will see a threat based on their prejudices. You see, you can't appeal to their 'good side' on this issue. Of course liberals are unlikely to move in this direction.
2
Guns equal money. Guns equal donations from the NRA. Guns equal votes from gun enthusiasts. Guns bring death to our children. Which is more important to Congress and the president? Not the last. Gail the tragedy is that we are growing accustomed to violent death, lies, cruelty, and racism. If you repeat a lie often enough pretty soon everyone believes it. The drip drip drip comes from the top.Thanks for your comments.
2
How do you measure the mental competence or state of mind of a person applying for a gun permit? If the vetting process was rigorous and included an extensive interview process we could deter many of these heinous acts. A central database of all individuals with a history of violence or mental disorders would be a good starting point.
1
The problem is not only guns. The other problem is the soulless, spineless politicians we elect who refuse to do anything about this "problem." Call it an outrage, actually. Come November, VOTE. And remember Sandy Hook and all the other young people who will never be able to vote when you step into the voting booth.
4
Tell me, what "common sense" gun law would have prevented the shooter from getting his hands on two basic guns that no one admits to wanting to ban (a shotgun and a revolver)? Liberals have tons of insults and rhetoric, and no solutions.
For once the NRA does have a point: we need to arm teachers. It is the only thing that can be done now that would have an immediate effect on school shootings. Passing legislation making it harder for would-be shooters to arm themselves is of course an urgent necessity. But even if it could be done--and it can not--it would take years to have much effect. The guns are out there and we can not make them go away. Police officers patrolling the schools has helped in some cases, but does not seem to be a solution.
It is easy to make fun of arming teachers. Late night hosts love to show pictures of 80 year old lady teachers who have never wielded anything more lethal than a spatula as a reductio ad absurdum of the idea. But every school has some young competent people who are at least as capable of learning proper handling of guns as the average police recruit. They can be taught how to defend their children and their training can be kept up to date. The mechanics of how to safely store weapons in the school and yet have them quickly available can be worked out.
The following is a terrible and strange sentence to write, but I show you the times we live in: Teachers are the only people who can respond with immediate and overwhelming lethal force to a school shooting.
1
A person's alienable right to pursue a full life of liberty and pursuit of happiness trumps the man-made right to own offensive people-killing weapons.
3
We have freedom of speech, but that does not allow me to yell "FIRE" in a crowded movie theater. It seems such nusiances as this don't apply to those who own guns.
Owners of war weapons who go on a shooting rampage are using the guns exactly as these weapons were intended to be used.
What's the problem?
1
In the midst of gun control debate which, as we all know, has been floating around for decades without, sadly, any concrete resolution due to multifaceted disgusting political and financial reasons, lies the media. -- STOP SENSATIONALIZING CRIMINALS AND COPYCATS, titling articles on "WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHOOTER". Please stop placing individualized attention to these copycats. It's like placing attention to terrorists. Realizing that it's human nature to want to know WHO the person is (like a bad accident on the highway), and thinking we're simply "highlighting mental illness", but does it serve any purpose other than give a crumb to the next monster who gets their hands on a gun? When there is media attention placed on the shooter/murderer, they have won. Do you get it? We all know these horrific acts are one of mental instability. Mental instability has been around for decades. However, did we have this problem when we were kids? No, we didn't. There seems to be a generational phenomenon with guns that needs to be addressed and taken care of. And the media has a responsibility too.
1
Sad to learn high school kids are being shot dead or injured on their campuses in the US.
Such an easy access to guns (more innocent than knives in Mr. T’s brain) is, as I understand, supported by arguments like: it’s a matter of freedom.
Well, it’s understandable even for me if such accesses are maintained in order for a quick formation of militia in fights against tyranny of a dictator or a king in a developing country or in a ‘communist’ state. I thought the US has graduated from such a developing stage in the latter part of 19th. Century.
Is the US as a nation suffering from retrogression syndrome?
Maybe so as we are witnessing revival of demagogue and selection of the Cheater by cheaters.
3
Don't worry Gail. Thoughtful, moral people are not getting used to this, and we intend to do something about it, after the next election. VOTE for the peoples' interests.
6
At its core, the position of the NRA and GOP is that guns are the the ultimate way to solve your problems. It does not matter what you think your problems are - you should be allowed to have guns to solve them.
This message has been wholeheartedly embraced by every school shooter without exception.
2
I would think existing laws about being an accessory to murder would cover it but if not pass a new law that if your failure to store firearms safely results in death you go to jail. It is ironic that the USA is so much more punitive than other western nations that this crime GETS A PASS. The USA has the highest prison population in the world. In Canada a life sentence is 25 years and can now be multiple consecutive sentences for multiple deaths.
This teen was reported as suicidal but "chickened out". The NYT has been highlighting young person suicide so saying that young persons are "used to guns" does not cut it as an excuse to leave them lying around with open access. Perhaps if the father of this teen gets jailed for the rest of his life it will convey a message.
Is it not crazy that the Dr. Nassars get locked up forever but not careless gun owners like this teen's father? Yes sex abuse is bad but no-one died. Are not gun deaths worse?
2
"This is one of those moments where we just need to step back and count our blessings," - Paul Ryan after Parkland. The Speaker of the House has spoken authoratively to the country; he says to stand down and thank God it wasn't your baby. 90% of Americans want gun control. The 2nd Amendment calls for a "well regulated" militia. It doesn't say "Have all the guns you want". Enough. Vote Democrat or keep burying our children.
6
Since we Americans apparently lack simple decency, probity, and any care for the common good, we need to purchase what we want. That's what we do because that's who we really are. Politicians are for sale. All of them. So it's time we buy the politicians we need to stop the N.R.A., repeal the Second Amendment, and force gun control on those who force guns on us.
3
Dear Ms. Collins,
You just don't get it. Americans are addicted to gun and gun violence. And why would the gun lords care about the violence? Their friends the drug lords don't care. However, there is one different. Drug addict parents usually don't kill their children. In fact, it is legally possible to take the children of drug addict parents away from their parent and try to raise them without drugs. So gun addiction is far worse than drug addiction.
2
When we have a government "of the people and for the people" this will stop.
2
I am hopeful that one day, I will be more shocked and dismayed by the actions of politicians in passing meaningful and strict gun control legislation than I am from another gun massacre.
It is an extremely sad and deplorable commentary when this country's citizens are more outraged from gun related murders than most elected officials.
2
Nothing's going to change.
1
There were plenty of guns in this country 30, 40, 50, years ago, and fewer gun control laws. But, there were no mass school shootings. So, why are guns suddenly the problem? No, the problem is that some of our sons are deciding they want to kill their peers and themselves. They want to destroy their world. What has changed in the past 20 years to our sons’ lives? That’s not hard to see: Addiction to violent video games, social media addiction, smart phone addiction, on-line pornography addiction, etc. That deadly cocktail of malevolent, anti-social technologies was not present before school shootings, but guns were. Why do we ignore this and focus exclusively on guns?
4
I am numb to these senseless killings. My heart bleeds but I cannot find the words to describe my anger, frustration and sense of helplessness towards the situation. We all know what the problem is and the solution to it but we cower under the mighty NRA. America, wake up!
We lose our voice quickly in the Swamp called congress. People who read the Times are encouraged to contact your representatives and vote, well, in those states with few gun regulations, those citizens don't seem to see things as readers of the Times see things.
More Americans are probably watching the Royal wedding than reading a newspaper this morning, and will remember more of that ceremony than the killings yesterday.
1
14 day waiting periods
NO sales by private owners
NO sales at gun shows
10 round magazine limit
No bump stocks
No cranks
Licenses for all arms
Child locks required
Minimum age of purchase 21
Assault rife ban
Universal background checks
Domestic violence ban
5
There are many comments calling on our need to vote in Democrats if we stand any chance at sensible gun control. And I don't disagree. Is there any reason Congressional Democrats could not put forth a bill THIS WEEK banning assault weapons? This would be a bold move and although it stands a slim chance of passing, it demonstrates Democrats are actually willing to do something toward sensible gun control. Americans will remember this in November.
1
I strongly believe that responsible gun laws would help reduce these horrific events, but don't pretend that's all that is going on. There is something wrong with the culture in this country, leading to hopelessness, disconnection, irrationality. I've seen religious folks blaming it on a lack of Jesus; I do not - I blame it on our excessive prioritization of the individual over the community. I believe our culture has many positive effects, including adventurousness, courage, discovery, independence of thought, many of the things that make this country what it is (for the good) - but any "ism" taken to extremes begins to devour itself, and individualism in this country has gotten to that point. It is leaving people, young and old, without any compass to determine what to do, where to go, what to be. This is, I think, why we have the political situation we now have, and so many of these terrible events.
On the other side, I do think that many of us are horrified by what we are seeing, and many are seeking purpose again. I hope it is not in religion - or at least, not only in religion. I hope it is in the nature of a rededication to the good of the community, and a feeling of purpose in making the world better than it is today. We have much to do; we can find purpose in doing it. If we can bring our young people along, maybe we can give them the sense that their own lives, and those of their fellows, is worth living.
1
It's horrific to say, but school shootings are becoming the new, awful, awful normal. Yesterday, NPR continued its vapid coverage of the royal wedding even after the news of the shootings broke. I heard an in depth discussion of fascinators as kids were being carted to hospitals.
78
But, of course, we are used to school shootings and its variations on the same theme of American culture. Ms. Collins would not have written the article if we were not used to it. The chokehold the NRA has on pencil-necked politicians, for all the explanations of money, constituents and the sanctity of the Second Amendment, is a mystery. And, thus far, appears to be absolute.
In the meantime, it seems the logical thing to do is to install metal-detectors in every school in the country. But no one seems to push this easy security measure in Congress. No doubt the thought of metal detectors in rich schools in rich neighborhoods, or nice schools in nice neighborhoods is anathema to those who think metal detectors belong in the lives of those who live on the other side of the tracks. But when it comes to mass gun violence we all live directly on top of the tracks and therefore we ignore the obvious fix at our peril. Well, our children's peril. Until the American shooters, some deranged, some not, aim their guns at shoppers in Whole Foods and diners hunched over their hamburgers and fries. There aren't enough metal detectors to cover every door of every public space. But this is not a problem of public spaces. Like the NRA, this is a 100% made in America problem. If we can't solve it then it means we are not only used to it. It means we, the people, are the problem. But we're not there yet. Start with metal detectors in schools. The dismal sight of them will motivate real change.
I support the move to more restrictive gun regulations to reduce the risk of children being killed. But I also agree with those who believe this shouldn’t be necessary.
If we accept that the only way to stop our children from mass-murdering each other is to make it physically impossible, then I think it’s fair to say we’ve given up.
It used to be possible to teach children to be better people: to be civilized, compassionate, decent, and modest enough to realize that, even if everyone needs to die, it’s not your job to decide how and when.
Now that changed, and nobody seems to know anything anymore. What happened?
As a person who lost a child to violence many years ago, I am always struck by the dynamics of this argument, since no law or restriction can change the cultural context of how this argument is playing out.
After all, this happened in Texas, the gun capital of the country, the place where the good guy is supposed to conquer over the bad. Never happens that way, but this is what we are told after every one of these incidents.
So all I can relay is personal experience.
After it happened, the last thing I thought about was self defense in the way Scalia defined it. I thought about the proliferation of guns on our streets and the failures of our society to address that proliferation and the reasons for it.
From my perspective, there are no good guys or bad guys, there is only the gun and how we must do everything we can to control its proliferation.
As the years went by, I lived in other parts of the country and met many responsible gun owners. and while I understand the nuances of their argument and their reasoning, their perceptions had nothing to do with the problem itself.
I do not want your thoughts and prayers.
This will not bring my child back.
I want to live in a culture and society that does not feel this need, because in the final analysis, we give these deeply broken people the means to play out these atrocities and until we start taking responsibility, our culture and society will never change.
4
Yes, Gail, the problem is guns . . . in part. Your colleague, Nicholas Kristof details the ways this public health crisis might be mitigated.
But as much as I abhor guns, the deeper problem is boys and men. I am a lifelong educator and write from experience, not vague theory.
Our culture has sanitized and celebrated violence, whether "action" movies, Mixed Martial Arts, video games or NFL highlight films. Boys are steeped in a hyper-masculine brine from birth. The common themes are domination and getting even. Most of us emerge relatively intact, but like any viral agent, the vulnerable become infected and damaged. Boys and men who are bullied, or feel unsuccessful and internalize that lack of success as a deep grievance, turn to the narratives presented by the culture. Dominate and get even. This is true for white supremacists, incels, and, apparently, boys like yesterday's murderer.
Gun control will make it marginally more difficult for these boys to act out their seething anger, so it's better than nothing. But schools and families must be at the center of our attention.
I find the suggestions about school security ridiculous. Groups of children are vulnerable, ripe for slaughter, all day every day - outside school in the morning and afternoon; on the playground; on field trips; at athletic events outside. We could have employed Marines and a tragedy was possible.
These boys need love. We must notice and care for them.
4
The year I was born, 1932, there was not a school shooting in the U.S., nor the following year. As a kid I accompanied uncles who shot deer and squirrels. I heard no mention of the Second Amendment nor of fear of guns being confiscated. Although there were random school shootings over the intervening 17 years, killing nearly 20 victims, there were none in 1950, the year I finished high school.
In the 1950s, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research archives show that most Americans, 60%, thought ownership of handguns should be restricted to law enforcement and military personnel. That percentage dwindled to a quarter of Americans by 2014. What changed American culture so drastically?
The NRA was founded after the Civil War to improve marksmanship and gun safety. In the 1930s it helped pass federal government-control laws like the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Federal Firearms Act. The NRA is now funded, however, largely by the gun industry. Its purpose changed to selling guns. Considered one of the three most powerful lobbying groups in the nation, in 1977 the NRA began lobbying against ALL gun control. It increased firearms sales dramatically by sowing fear, claiming that anyone who disagrees wants to sabotage the Second Amendment. The NRA is now often linked with patriotism, implying that anyone opposed to its sales pitch is less patriotic, insulting my family! My great grandfather, grandfather, father, 3 uncles, brother, and I all served in the military.
6
There is a larger, scarier message here, that the Afghans have known for decades; you cannot protect something from a person who is willing to sacrifice their life destroy it. This is especially true in the modern world where any astute, motivated person can get firearms and explosives.
You have to ask yourself, what are they trying to destroy? In Afghanistan and the Middle East, they have a misguided notion that Israel, America, or the local government is the cause of their problems, and that they can help to solve these problems by blowing themselves and others up.
Someone put that notion in their heads. Some entity consciously directed their thoughts and actions to that end.
America's mass school shootings are different because we cannot identify the entity that convinced them to commit their heinous acts. In the followup investigations, we can usually find some source of their grievance, but many people have grievances, but the vast majority do not cross the threshold into murder.
Perhaps we should look more closely at the similarities and differences between suicide bombers and school shooters. The suicide bombers destroy a target to injure a larger entity, and they have someone directing them to do it. The school shooters have neither. Find the missing pieces and you might solve the puzzle. What is directing them to commit these acts, and what entity are they trying to injure? Are we missing something here?
3
You're right in one way: we shouldn't get used to this. But the problem is, we've had all these incidents--I was at work yesterday when the word got out about this and my reaction was "oh, no, here we go AGAIN"--and nothing's been done yet. And nothing will be at least until January of next year... IF more people are truly appalled by what has happened and vote accordingly. Until--and UNLESS--that happens, there's probably going to be a lot more of the same.
3
We're as numb to daily gun atrocities as we are to being represented to the world by a low grade outer borough gangster.
1
Here's optimism. Gun owners rush to the stores to empty the shelves of assault rifles and hand guns in the waning days of the Trump administration. Insurance for gun tragedies becomes mandatory and expensive. The gun ownership database becomes comprehensive.
I definitely have a litmus test against any candidates who accept NRA money.
5
Fine just remember that list includes Bernie Sanders.
It really is too late to not get used to it. I heard an interview a while ago with an Israeli who said when he hears about a terrorist attack or bombing he and his friends check their phones to make sure their loved ones are safe, then go back to drinking their coffee or whatever. In other words, there comes a point when the thing is part of the fabric of daily life, which you lead in spite of it. After Sandy Hook and the slaughter of first graders, more states moved to loosen gun laws than tighten them and, as Nicholas Kristoff explains today, our government did almost nothing. If we don’t understand the meaning of that grim message, we’re fooling ourselves to expect meaningful change now or in the distant future. As chilling as it seems, the death of over 20 first graders is acceptable as some kind of trade-off with a bizarre interpretation of a constitutional “freedom.” Over 300 million guns in the hands of Americans with 10+ million new purchases each year. A crudely divided partisan political landscape with no end in sight (regardless of any Democratic gains in November). Not that we give up trying, but we need to grasp the magnitude of the issue and its roots in the violence that seems to be a vein running through our culture and history. It is about guns but it’s also about our cultural DNA with little prospect of changing it.
4
Our culture is software, our bodies are hardware.
What will it take to stop this? The last really serious gun control legislation came right after President Reagan was shot. Just saying.
2
We are already "used to this." Look at the other Editorial with the month by month chart of the absolute nothing Congress has done since Sandy Hook. If that's not an indicator of a nation "used to this"...not sure what is.
I think we're used to a Congress not doing our bidding. In fact, there seems to be a very vocal segment of voters, who support them not doing anything we ask about this and other issues...and they tend to be Republican. They either fall under the Tea-party or now the Trumplodite umbrella.
A segment of voters who deem it acceptable to give huge tax breaks to Corps and the wealthy, like Trump and Pruitt, et al, and start re-polluting our waters, air, and lands. A segment who deem it okay to stop investigating predatory online-schools (many who purposely preyed on Vets) or charter schools, only to go after public schools. A segment of voters who appear fine with attacking and defunding women's health providers, as long as no mention, not even a peep, is said about LEGALIZED abortion.
The list goes on...and on...
So that nothing is being done to strengthen existing, or add more gun control laws...despite popular opinion to do exactly that - is of no surprise. Not to me.
Better to elect do-nothings, or do-somethings for the already wealthy, and known polluters, etc. Better to vote for narrow-minded, one-issue politicians. Better to drink copious amounts of conspiracy Kool-aid, and elect those who denigrate the rule of law and the judicial system.
8
Antithesis
Oh, say can you see,
By the dawn's early light,
Where so sadly we hailed,
At our children's blood gleaming?
Whose broad lives and bright stars,
Through the perilous fight,
O'er their remains we watched,
As their futures died screaming.
In the flashing red glare,
Sobs and cries rent the air,
Giving proof through the night,
That our horror was still there.
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave?
For the land, now unfree, and the home that we crave?
3
Once again where was the good NRA mythical guy with a gun to stop this bad guy with a gun?
2
Repeal the 2nd amendment!
7
The NRA owns America .... Are you happy now ?
8
It's time to stop pussy-footing around with this. If gun CONTROL is unacceptable to the minority of people who apparently have a death grip --- and that's a deliberate choice of words --- on Congress, then let's go to the mat and outlaw private gun ownership. Period. Full stop.
There, I said it. Let's come for their guns, and let's take them away. No, I don't know how we'd do this, but it seems like the only possible solution. And since any kind of common sense controls or restrictions appear to be impossible, we might as well try something else that seems equally impossible. Maybe we'll get lucky and actually get it done.
We simply require every gun owner to surrender their weapons, no exceptions. Give them 90 days. After that, they become one of the "outlaws" they claim will be the only people with guns if guns are outlawed. But wait! These are self-proclaimed LAW ABIDING CITIZENS. So, if there is a law outlawing private gun ownership, I would expect each and every one of them to comply. To abide by the law.
What about hunters, you say? Well, once we have confiscated all the guns, there will be plenty of them to rent to hunters when they pick up their hunting license which, by the way, will require a full, in depth background check and the registered purchase of ammunition at $50 per cartridge. I'm a hunter. If you can't take your game with one shot, you're doing it wrong.
Excuse me. I just woke up from my dream. I see there's been another shooting. Damn.
8
Jim - awesome! My old departed granddad used to end the hunting expedition if "we" missed on the first shot!
He'd say; "You're using an awesome piece of hardware...you now have mastery over all other creatures - use it right or not at all!"
How did the perp get into a school with 2 guns? Gail Collins has no idea.
2
Perp. He wasn't a perpetrator until after he "got in".
Collins knows perfectly well how he got in. He walked in. Through one of the many doors. Did you read the column?
Please consider every way that might have been prevented. Metal detectors at every door? Entering school like boarding a plane? (Wouldn't the gunman then choose to lie in wait until students queued up when the school opened?) Armed guards? Banks get robbed anyway. A suicidal attacker would surely start by shooting the guard.
No preventative you can name would be less intrusive and more effective than licensing guns and making gun owners and gun manufacturers liable for harm done with their guns. Same as with cars: if you don't want the liability, don't own the gun.
Yes, most gun owners are law abiding. Most guns are never used to shoot anyone. Most drivers are careful, too, and would never flee the scene of an accident. We have licenses and license plates to discourage those who would.
1
LMjr - huh? So you support the full, at all times, lock down method of keeping children safe. He was also a student there...so...maybe...he knew the best way in...like any employee would at their place of work...? Its called the front door. The most obvious, and least conspicuous place to easily enter any building at the start of the days business.
this darkness has got to give.
2
Those who commit these atrocities are feable-minded cowards. A gun makes it possible for even the dumbest, most cowardly idiot to kill others. That is the only real virtue of guns: they make the stupid and the fearful feel superior and brave. If you look at every one of these tragedies, you find a lonely anti-social weakling who is filled with self-pity, self-hatred and rage toward a world that has simply refused to indulge their pathos and narcissistic false sense of grandeur. These mass-shooters know deep-down that they are failures, that they are 'losers', in every way. Their broken little egos demands 'justice' against all of those who refuse to indulge them and refuse to join them in their abyss. How pathetic! They target the innocent, the un-armed and the defenseless, in a place where one is not supposed to be armed, precisely because they are cowards! A gun does not make you strong. It only proves that you are weak and feable. Show me someone who loves his gun(s) and I will show you a small broken individual. We, the relatively-sane people of the world who do not need a gun to feel 'ok', should not have to tolerate or indulge those emotionally-disabled individuals and their murderous actions.
3
No one ever imagined that gay marriage would be accepted or that marijuana is legal in some states.
Social change does happen. The NRA will go the way of the KKK.
America will reject its gratuitous violence.
2
Not when gun owners think this is the only expression of freedom.
Not when gun owners think that because they love freedom, it also proves that they love America more than the rest of us.
"...[Texas Gov] Dan Patrick who responded to the shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando with a tweet quoting the Bible: 'God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.' ”
Yes, Dan, maybe this time you reaped the seeds of unlimited gun ownership, unlimited concealed carry, and unlimited delusion in the Wild West that is Texas [lack of] firearm policy. Maybe when it hits home enough times, even in gun-crazed Texas, maybe then you and your ilk will be seen for the hypocrites you are and you'll be voted out of office. Maybe then Texas and the country can move forward.
We will hear all the traditional NRA-sponsored excuses here, like knives are lethal and there was no "assault weapon" used, so why ban them? They will all ignore the NRA-sponsored legal inability to view gun deaths as a public health problem while they tell us mental illness is our problem, not guns. They will ignore the reality that is proven everywhere in the world: More Guns = More Death.
They will blindly support the one party who does nothing about either gun violence OR treating mental illness, the feckless, hypocritical and ignorant GOP. Trump's two-faced lies are just the continuation of GOP doctrine of "thoughts and prayers". But there is no thinking going on in conservative heads, nor true praying as Gov Patrick proved. Until Republicans are sent packing from the halls of government, nothing will change and we'll watch more of our citizens, young and old, sacrificed on the altar of the NRA-GOP Axis.
6
The problem is simple. The solution should be simple and the two are intertwined.
Donald Trump is weak. He is a simpleton. He is a coward. He has no spine. He is a fool.
DONALD, ARE YOU LISTENING? NO GUNS.
Is your ego really worth countless lives?
It seems that it is. You are beneath any value, by ANY measure. I cannot think of any measure that would be of greater cost to you, than zero. You are ineffective. Worthless.
The truth hurts. It should.
4
So, yeah.... how's all those pro-gun laws working out...?
2
The simple answer is for everyone to vote against the NRA. Liberal
3
Hey fellow Texans:
The NRA gave Ted Cruz a 100% rating and $75,000.
Take those useless thoughts and prayers and stuff em in the ballot box.
Vote Beto O’Rourke this November.
22
WAY too many violent teen offenders were never arrested because of the failed ''Promise'' program we had under the Obama administration.
Had this kid, the one from Parkland, and even Trayvon Martin from Florida a few years ago been arrented when they had committed real crimes - usually multiple felonies - these people would at LEAST not have had legal access to guns and the police would have recognized thir names as warning crime after warning from citizens came in to police.
Making Barack Obama and his progressive media worshippers feel good is still getting American killed needlessly.
1
Obama and the media were not the reason warning after warning went unheeded by the Parkland police. Laws were. Just because someone thought the boy was dangerous didn't give the police the right to do anything. In general in this country, you can be arrested only after you do something.
And let's suppose your Promise initiative was the actual villain. Let's pretend he'd been arrested, exactly as you prefer. Then what? Until when? And when he gets out? Barred from weapons for life? Jailed for life?
You're dreaming if you think the criminal justice system, or any system, can neatly and accurately separate criminals — let alone would-be criminals — from the innocent. That's beyond law.
What laws can do is create context. By removing guns from the context, and holding those with guns liable for their use, we can improve public safety. Measured in thousands of lives each year. What would be so terrible about that?
Trayvon Martin had a record of committing “multiple felonies”? And had a gun? Actually, no, and no. No felonies, and the gun was George Zimmerman’s. But, yeah, ignore facts and scapegoat Obama. Saves the trouble of using “the Google” to check for the truth.
1
Oh, by the way, Trayvon Martin was the victim. You're right, I suppose, that putting him in jail might have prevented his getting shot. Not sure how that would have served justice, though.
The surest and quickest way to end these mass killings of our children is to never vote for a Republican.
9
Gail, "Please, Let's Never Get Used to This" (America acting like a global Empire) --- which, of course, is the cancerous and meta-causal tumor in our 'body politic' behind all of these hundreds of lesser 'identity issues', the dozens of larger, but still subordinate, "symptom problems" like; unending wars, Wall Street looting, racism, massive inequality, domestic spying, et al., and "our entire ailing social order" [Zygmunt Bauman].
Yes, Gail, "Please, Let’s Never Get Used to" (or ignore) the late great Jewish public intellectual, academic expert, and professor of 'political diseases' warning about all Empires to her own German people and all people:
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home".
Of which we have both "Troubles, Right here in River City --- and that starts with 'T', and that rhymes with 'E', and that stands for EMPIRE".
2
You're too late, Gail.
1
There were 10 million guns manufactured last year. More than some countries have in total. Why do we need to keep making them if there are already more guns than people?
Other countries don't have this problem because guns are rare and hard to get.
11
Until the the NRA and their supporters have the turned on them and their children, nothing will happen...
4
Sure guns are a symbol of our addiction to violence across the board. But signs are also the problem. Ignoring ANY sign of incipient violence -- including a t shirt -- is a common and almost universal preamble to violence. The generators of such signs need to be confronted and restrained. This is the main justification for a justice system. We currently have is a violence-generating for-profit system. It is called the USA.
2
Arrest people who have committed no crime? That's America for you?
And Bret Stephens writes a whole column justifying the murder of 7 year old Palestinians children by Israel soldiers. Of course governments declaring war on children is somehow not the same thing as lone crazed kid shooting up a school.
8
Dark, dangerous and wild,
Is the country that awaits you outside.
I’d rather have you stay inside,
Says a mother, to her unborn child.
Seventeen people were killed in Florida.
“God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Please, let Dan Patrick do some reaping - soon.
1
The NRA seems to be the root cause.
1
More nonsense in NYTs. The thread in common with these things is mental illness. What will people say if people like the author get their way and take away everyone's guns and these tragedies still occur but by driving cars into crowds or by stabbing people. Should we then outlaw knives and autos for fear they will be used in this way? There will never be sensible gun legislation even if needed when papers like the NYTs print these knee jerk analyses of serious problems.
1
Civilized countries have stricter gun laws, and don't suffer from compensatory car crashes. Fewer people die. It's measurable.
That's also true among states. Massachusetts has strict gun laws and suffers gun fatalities at 1/3 the rare of, say, Missouri. No rash of mad drivers there either (unless you count every Massachusetts license plate). If every state had Massachusetts's laws, it's estimated 20,000 American lives would be saved every year.
So it's not true gun regulation has no effect. We regulate machine guns very effectively. We can regulate high capacity magazines, too, just as effectively. We can require universal background checks. We can enforce liability on owners and manufacturers. Effective does mean perfect. But it would definitely mean lives.
1
More than 1,600 mass shootings have taken place in America since Sandy Hook. What’s your solution?
The only reason politicians are scared of the NRA is that NRA members are vocal, contribute, and VOTE. It is time for people who care about kids, about Americans, get out and vote out the people who support killing our kids. Period.
8
US population: ~330 million. NRA membership: ~ 6 million.
More American youngsters have been killed by guns in 2018 than members of the US armed forces, anywhere.
THINK!
5
Gail, sorry but after reading these comments I see that we have become used to it.
My first reaction when hearing this from a friend, because I no longer listen to the news, get alerts on my phone or election device, and read the NYTimes when I want and delete anything that says “BREAKING NEWS” because it’s usually about a tweet the self proclaimed sexual predator made was, wait was it in a red state, so what else is new? This is the new norm.
1
I'm coming for your guns.
I'm a young man and have the time and determination to prevail.
I'm coming for your guns.
You don't need them to protect you from tyranny. You voted for tyranny.
I'm coming for your guns.
If you don't have a navy you can summon or a squadron of f-18s, your stupid guns are useless against an organized military.
I'm coming for your guns.
The second ammendment was a mistake. You shouldn't have the right to bear arms.
I'm coming for your guns.
We are a generation away from abolishing your right to own a murder machine.
I'm coming for your guns.
9
The problem is too many stupid headlines like "What we know about the shooter." What we know about the shooter is that the shooter had guns.
5
It's time. It's actually way past time that we recognize the NRA as a terrorist organization and shut it down. In the meantime, all the parents of kids who are gunned down in school should sue the NRA. They are monsters who laugh on their way to the bank after every shooting since gun sales go up and they acquire more members. The people in Congress are monsters who collect big bribes from the NRA and pass even looser gun laws. I am against the death penalty, but anyone who has just finished shooting up a school, or anywhere else, should be executed on the spot if they haven't already committed suicide. Last but not least, the parents of kids who commit these atrocities should be held as accessories.
7
Way past time to recognize that the NRA and their GOP goons are effectively a domestic terrorist organization, promoting and enabling the slaughter of innocents for the sake of gun industry profits. Wake up, America.
7
Gail, you are one of the few decent writers for the Times these days but let’s face it, this country has been used to violence for a very long time. It used to be kept under the covers better, now it is all out in the open.
2
Pardon my re-posting, but Red, Purple or Blue, rural or city, everyday experience with automobiles indicates that educated, licensed, insured and conservatively policed drivers are WAY less likely to endanger themselves or others than unprepared, unlicensed, tear-away scoff-laws, driving off on a hell-to-pay ‘lark’.
Individual states should license and regulate firearms AT LEAST to the extent they regulate motor vehicles; that means according to local needs. We should stop playing the NRA's (Russian Financed?) Open Sales Game and improve the chances that every American will live a long, productive life. We’d all benefit.
Consider ONE of the benefits: if YOU injure ME with an insured automobile, I don’t pay the hospital bills, an insurance company does. Why should an injured party -- let alone the emergency services AT ANY LEVEL of government -- pay for injuries inflicted by some perverse shooter's firearms? Let the perverse one’s insurance company take the beating and, thereby, bring some 'free market forces' to bear. Market Forces --- remember those?
The prototype for sensible gun control is criss-crossing the intersection in front of us every day, waiting to be voted into place. Nobody's saying "Do without cars or trucks." Nobody (in my household at least) is saying "Do without guns". Just get real. Please get real. It is time to get real.
5
The deadly l NRA must be crushed. They have bought the American government against the wishes of the people. Our Congressmen are complicent in the murder of hundreds of our children. They share responsibility with the NRA for mass murders. The American majority speaks for strict gun control. We want our freedom back: freedom to walk down the street, to attend public gathering, and above all safety for our now fearful children in their schools.
4
Bleed. Rinse. Repeat.
6
I arose early this morning, the tv on, my wife watching the Royal Wedding. The beautiful sunshine of Windsor, the smiling faces of the happy couple, the assembled guests, all there for this beautiful occasion.
There were security forces everywhere to protect the crowd. None of the UNIFORMED officers wore sidearms.
This was juxtaposed in print within the Times today to a scene near me in Houston straight from the pits of hell. Right here in what has been the freest, greatest nation on earth over the past 100 years, a sample of our future adults were at public school, learning the basics that would prepare them to move forward in life, earn a living, find love, to ultimately reproduce and begin the cycle anew. For some it will never be.
Why? among others, one man, formerly known as Danny Goeb, now Dan Patrick,is a microcosm of today's GOP politician. His focus in life is attention, adulation, power, control, and money. A former Baltimore sportscaster, Houston tv weatherman, failed bar owner, and right wing radio blabbermouth, HE has demagogued his way to the most powerful political office in Texas, the Lt Governor's position.
His lust for power, his false use of Christianity as a justification for his catering to the rich and powerful at the expense of our children, symbolizes the systematic destruction of American democracy at any cost.
His idea to eliminate school exits displays the vileness of what he symbolizes. We the voters of Texas need to vote him out.
4
"Please, Let’s Never Get Used to This". Sorry Gail, unfortunately the nra and gop have made us be used to these horrors, that it's almost become trite. It's sickening the way they blow over it.
2
Yes indeed, this is exactly what “the founding fathers” intended with the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution. They wanted the NRA and the mass shootings because it’s American.
This killing IS normalized already.
The “media” is always reporting the same nonsense from the killings...
Everyday ones son / daughter are not killed is a fine day.
Dear Lord this is sickening.
Thanks as usual Gail.
2
As an observer from down under I think that if politicians were being slaughtered at the same rate as school children there would be sensible gun laws in place quick smart.
With the NRA being told to sit down and shut up
9
Too soon again...
"In the first hours after the Texas school shooting that left at least ten dead Friday, online hoaxers moved quickly to spread a viral lie, creating fake Facebook accounts with the suspected shooter's name and a doctored photo showing him wearing a "Hillary 2016" hat."
Of course, this must all be the Democrats' fault somehow. It can't possibly be a problem with too many guns.
2
Speaking for just one voter, I'm not "used to this." This isn't business as usual for my household and I don't have a bunch of bigots and loudmouths as friends. My disgust with guns began when JFK was murdered. Then, Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy. The NRA then was a low key, obscure club, a far cry from the stiletto heels, high fashion and pit bull snarling of Dana Loesch. Advice to Democrats: Quit pussyfooting with Congress, state legislators, governors and like those Parkland kids (warriors) take this evil head on. Dr. King taught us that there is only defeat by going slow. He refused such advice and it worked.
2
We are already used to mass shootings in Chicago.
“This is the same Dan Patrick who responded to the shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando with a tweet quoting the Bible: “God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Feel free to think of this as the Blame the Almighty theory of mass shootings.” No, that’s the blame the victim theory of mass shootings.
Tomorrow I start. I plan to talk to everyone I know, friends, relatives and strangers, and tell them a vote for a Republican is a vote for the NRA and a vote to kill children.
1
Americans, please stop praying. It is useless if not to console yourself. In fact, do not pray anymore, because you should not feel consoled, you must feel guilty, at least until you have obtained a decent law on the gun control
347
Spot on. Thanks for saying this. The feeling Americans should feel right now is GUILT. Not sadness.
39
In Italy you might not realize that in the United States, "thoughts and prayers" has become an ironic phrase. It represents pious hand-wringing in place of doing anything.
That the phrase has gained ironic intent demonstrates just how normal these shootings have become.
43
True. Americans vote for this every time. The guilt is on them.
32
As much as I dislike dan patrick, he may have a good idea. It seems obvious that nothing is going to done about guns and with the number of guns in this country it would take a long time to do anything really effective. How about schools having only one door for ingress and egress, the rest locked at all times. The one door would have a metal detector and two armed guards with instructions to stay apart and frisk people entering. I believe this would help and avoid a bunch of people-teachers, administrators, et al running around with guns.
Right. It wouldn't create a giant queue outside the door, or in a waiting area. That never happens at airports. The shooter wouldn't just lie in wait for the crowd to build, and then open fire. Who could imagine that?
1
What about exiting during a fire? Shooters also use the element of surprise and could kill any armed gate keepers. Then no could escape. Remember the mass murders at the military bases?
1
Just this month, Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the NRA, assuring them that they now "have a true friend and champion in the White House. I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms," Trump said. "Never ever."
Twenty weeks into 2018, and there have already been 22 school shootings where someone was hurt or killed--more than 1 shooting a week.
3
One action that no one seems to have seriously suggested is to publish the name of every single holder of a gun license in the U.S. We should also know how many weapons are owned and who has access to them.
Why would a sane person fight this?
5
Most who oppose gun registration see it as a precursor to gun confiscation.
If you don't think sane people are good with ridiculous hypotheticals, try boarding an airplane sometime.
My son is going to study in the United States. Since I cannot change his mind.
I will have to pray every morning, every night for his survival. And even that may not prove enough. I feel desperate. How has this great nation come to this? I am trying to figure out. Sevral articles I have read on this issue tell me it is about culture and manliness. So many men in the United States grow up with fond memories of going on a hunting trip or visiting a shooting range with their dad and they will be proud to pass them on to their own sons. They come to believe that is what manliness is about. While I have no right to deny such a feeling itself, I strongly suggest that this culture of manliness should take some defferent , safer form now that far too many lives has been lost. Gunlovers. please do not delude yourself. Just claiming that you are a law abiding gunowner does not allow you to turn your eyes away from the issue of gun violence. You may have no intention to kill others, but as long as people have guns,deadly incidents will continue to happen for the guns are the tools made exclusively TO K I LL. There should be some restrictions (and more effective enforcement)on the use of firearms, for the safety of my son, your chldren and grandchldren.
a
6
If it were only about guns it would be an easier problem to solve. Make them costly in every way. But it is also about a sick society consumed with its fetish for guns, its fetish for violence and most of all its shameless fetish for fame and infamy. All of them are as old as the hills.
3
“God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
It is true and we are are reaping what we have sowed by allowing the NRA to control the gun dialogue in this country with the result that we are absolutely deluged by weaponry. What should be the safest environment possible for our children, our schools, have been turned into killing fields
5
Guns have only one purpose, to kill. They do not belong on our streets, in our schools or in our homes. I do not want to see someone walking down the shopping mall with a gun. I do not want to fear that a traffic dispute will be solved with a gun. I do not want to be afraid of my neighbor because he has a gun. We need to stop dithering about who is using the guns and why they are legal, ban all guns. Period. And if that means repealing the second amendment, do it now.
4
What a strange title. What a wrong title.
Of course I am used to this.
How can a country claim to be "great" if it treats its young in this way?
It is inconceivable that this could happen once and no action be taken. But so many times? Those responsible for leading and implementing change for the greater good should hang their heads in shame.
The U.S. may not realise, or accept the fact, but to the rest of the world you are a laughing stock. Your politicians are more readily seen on comedy shows as the butt of the joke, than on serious news bulletins advocating and leading change. In no way do you lead the world. To want to "be like the U.S" would be political death in Australia. The Australian public would not accept it.
Hopefully your young will say no more, and vote! Vote for anyone not supported by the NRA. Anyone who will show courage and lead.
Then perhaps, rather than watch the decline of a once great Empire, the world will see it rise again.
In the meantime our sympathy to all affected by the mindless gun violence.
4
Gosh, Gail...how quaint! You seem like a doe-eyed innocent! This has been the norm for years now! Even The Onion' 'Nothing can be done' and cynical 'thoughts and prayers' jokes have lost their wit. tRump, with his nose up the NRAnus is laughable even amongst his supporters. Give up, take your chances. Accept this reality: the US Constitution is a failed document. When majority of Americans realize the insanity it will change.
But it never will.
Our politicians in the pocket of the NRA give us “thoughts and prayers”. We should give them the boot in November.
4
This is the kind of country the American people want.
1
You know what ? The shooter's father in Sante Fe. Those guns were his.
1
Liberals miss the point that everything is an opportunity to sell things to mindless Americans. Next up is billions to make schools into prisons. So we get no progress in the American society because America is so ignorant, it is fighting fights of the 19th century about guns and racism and ignorance and the nature of work. Americans need to read some history, they are so misinformed and ignorant. One can only meh at American culture and society: it is mindless, boring and toxic to any progress.
1
First of all, who are you to claim to know what all "liberals" know or don't know?
No liberal I know looks forward to fortifying our schools. We think it's ridiculous. Besides expensive and counterproductive, it wouldn't do anything for movie theaters, nightclubs, or politicians politicking in parking lots or playing baseball in parks.
What would be nice would be to go back to making public policy based on data. We have data about climate change, universal healthcare, college education, and gun regulation. The data all support liberal policies. If we followed the data, more Americans would live longer, more fruitful lives.
here is a suggestion: i think it should read: 14 kids have been MURDERED, rather than 14 kids have been lost. language matters.
4
There is a solution! Voters need to become a one issue march. Reasonable and sensible gun legislation. If your congressman is against it, vote him out and deal the NRA its death blow. Then, and only then, will these meal mouthed defenders of the second amendment get out of the way. So, ask one question only of the people who want your vote, "Are you in favor of sensible gun legislation designed to get better control of gun violence?" If the answer is no, or something like, "well, it depends on the wording and the details and....blah, blah, blah," vote him or her out.
1
The blood of every student ever killed or wounded in school shootings, is indelibly impressed on the hands of a lackey congress. A group of self indulgent people only interested in prolonging their cushy, congressional seats. A congregation of spineless individuals unconcerned with the welfare of their constituency, eager to do the bidding of the NRA and other self interest groups.
Based upon the actions of out Congress, our system has failed. Our 'democratic society' is a sham.
6
The NPR show Marketplace had a good segment on how effective the NRA is at getting their members to contact politicians. Liberals need to speak up more where it counts.
3
Agreed. More liberals need to make gun control their singular litmus test for politicians. You have an F rating from the NRA? You got my vote. That is positively the only way laws will change.
Pleezzeee, get used to it! This is America and as long as Americans continue to support the 2nd Amendment and the Republican Party, nothing is going to change. After Sandy Hook the GOP decided the death of a few children was a small price to pay to keep their supporters armed. Remember their mantra, more guns make us safer! The US is less than 4% of the world population and holds over 40% of the world’s firearms. And Americans want those guns because they fear people of color, who’s kiddin’ who. Any ideas about any changes to our gun laws is DOA.
6
This is all correct, as far as it goes. But the harsher reality is that politicians NEED these massacres to occur, because the massacres are what prompt the public outcry, which in turn prompts the NRA to funnel millions of dollars to the politicians to maintain the status quo. Which is why, still, this is fundamentally a mathematics problem: Dead children = Rich politicians.
4
Sorry, too late. Get used to this now.
We're going to have to get used to this because this is normal now – like so many other things that used to be unthinkable.
A country that can let a man like Donald Trump become president and allow him to remain in office despite mountains of evidence of incompetence, corruption, and outright malice is a country that has lost its way.
4
Rest assured, Gail Collins - we Americans who believe that our demented and sick gun culture has caused the myriad school shootings and mass student deaths will NEVER GET USED TO young men committing murders with guns. Those who believe in the Second Amendment keep arsenals in their homes. They pride themselves on the evil Second Amendment (as evil as Slavery was), and are guilty of abetting the NRA and the continual agony and horror of school shootings. We Americans are hopeless today, but will never be inured to the terrible grief and madness of murder by ignorant young men with guns.
3
Instead of getting rid of guns why don't you try to figure out why at this time the shootings occur. We have had guns forever and not had this problem. Afraid to investigate?
1
Not sure what you are suggesting here. Every time there is a shooting like this there is hand wringing investigations about every aspect of the tragedy. There are reports in the media examining the influence of music and movies, the ability to connect to hate groups on-line, bullying in schools, mental health issues, parental neglect, parental over-indulgence, and violent video games. No one is afraid to investigate, but the NRA, their supporters and the people who are obsessed with their guns don't want to hear the results of those investigations.
The best possibility for improving the situation is to vote out of office the supporters of the NRA. If I had high school age kids I would keep them home until the laws are changed. Emptying the schools might not get any response from our political leaders, but the kids are better off ignorant than dead.
3
Sorry Gail, the horses already got out. The country is fully “used to this” and the national assembly line of potential school shooters is cranking them out quite productively, thank you! Even as the sorrow and outrage of the Parkland killings was receding from the news, this kid was grooming and preparing. The shooters are not even necessarily oddball loners who existed on the fringe of their school communities. This kid was a student and a footballer. They hide in plain sight. Yes Gail, it’s guns, and it’s also society. In so many ways American society devalues American life, unless you can buy a new car, home, or stock portfolio. Otherwise, you and your family and friends are expendable. America’s prime export is military action. The weapons industry is doing big business abroad so why not do so at home? And what is it about young white males that compels them to mass murder? In the 1600’s they would have been hailed as “Indian fighters.” Is there something in the water? In contrast, communities of color seem to pick em off one at a time. I used to think the NRA adage that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” was a pathetic rationalization, but actually, people don’t kill students; societies kill students! It’s like this mass shooting business has become a cottage industry! The media gets paid, gun “control” advocates become politicians, gun sales keep going up, and public education keeps getting shot up and terrorized. You’d think there was a pattern here.
4
Keep the flowers, teddy bears and candles. Stop the banalities of “thoughts and prayers”. Give us sensible gun control so our children will grow up to be adults one day. Is that too much to ask? If it is, there’s no hope for us.
2
Notable school shootings are every other month. Motor vehicle deaths are 100 a day, every day of the year, and nobody seems to mind much. Life goes on.
1
It's time we took this fight directly to the NRA. They are a tiny minority, less than 2% of the population. There are 315 million of us and only 5 million of them. Their leadership is disgusting and un-American. We need to establish a permanent demonstration in front of their offices. Their leadership must be denounced on a daily basis in the most unflattering--but factually correct--terms. They are after all stupid, unfeeling extremists who have no place in our country. Until the NRA is diminished in the eyes of all patriotic Americans this killing will go on and on and on.
3
I wonder how much coverage of Meghan and Harry there would've been if this had been the massacre at Columbine High School when Americans were shocked and devastated? Now, it's just another school shooting.
2
SEND A STRONG MESSAGE.
A simple and meaningful solution is for all Republicans of good conscience to change their political registration as Republican to Democrat or Independent.
Do this and send a real message that enough is enough and do it before the elections in November of 2018.
What is more important - our children or the NRA and its enabler the wishey washey Trump.
Put the threat of your vote where your good sense and your heart happen to be.
2
I will never get used to this; but I would ask you, and other journalists to write about gun control often & between shootings.
2
What will we be saying next week or next month when another mass shooting takes place? More thoughts and prayers perhaps?
Until the majority of Americans make a decision to end this carnage with sensible and enforceable gun reform laws, the shootings will continue.
The 2018 midterms are almost upon us. Most of us know the solution begins at the ballot box. Those politicians who continue to accept blood money from the NRA and other groups opposed to sensible gun reform, need to be repealed and replaced. Ask your House and Senate representatives if the receive contributions from these groups and if they will continue to do so. Let their answer guide your decision.
2
I simply don't understand why anyone feels threatened about second amendment rights. I think there must be a wild and intense undercurrent of paranoia fed by the NRA to convince many (millions of) gun owners that limits on freedom mean no freedom at all. What?
I don't want anyone's guns. Nope. I don't want anyone to feel unprotected, either. But I really, really don't want uncontrolled expansion of gun sales and the loud, belligerent fake-brave barking of people who are just fraidy cats.
3
We have always lived in an extremely violent country, we Americans, but it’s different when the victims are kids. Victims of suicides, mass shootings, gang violence. So many kids. There is no humane way a lawmaker or a gun enthusiast can justify opposition to tighter gun control. Every one of them should be horrified by this grotesque violence. They should be ashamed. On their death beds, they should suffer with the knowledge that they are the reason these children have died.
3
I used to think the NRA was so successful because they could get their membership to take to the streets in support of more guns. Now after these revelations of Trump, Michael Cohen and the inner workings of Washington I know that the NRA is successful because they pay off politicians with cold, hard cash.
Maybe it is time to vote them out of office. Rep. Peter King of NY 2nd congressional district, are you listening?
4
It needs to be said, very plainly, bluntly, and consistently, that the deaths of innocent civilians from gun violence are outrageously considered by the Republican Party, Congress, the gun lobby and the NRA to be acceptable collateral damage to an overly expansive and disingenuous interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
7
This is about Congress and Trump not biting the hand that feeds them, the NRA.
So in order to stop this we have to elect people that are not feeding off the NRA.
It's time to elect people who care more about the people of this country then putting a dollar in their election fund.
6
Will the father of this young man be charged as an adult for allowing his son access to his guns?
I respect the desires of this poor community to ask for real prayer as they attempt to react and then heal from this mass murder, but don't be fooled into thinking that this it will do any more than that.
People pull the triggers, but the guns do the damage.
2
Well at least it's not as bad as a world war. Agian, if this is a war, we need to treat it as such and cover it in the news the same way. All I ever see from these scenes are students in yards and cops. And why are so many kids this angry and sad. Something in these schools is rotten.
1
Sorry Gail, but Americans are used to this, and many no longer care. Sandy Hook was a breaking point. The battle was lost when the country could not rally around sensible responses to the slaughter of 6 and 7 year old children.
9
The President's inconsistencies are not the problem. Rather, it's the moral cowardice shown by flag-wearing members of Congress who in all likelihood go to church on Sunday and profess that all of this is the Almighty's plan.
As you point out, when gay people were massacred, Greg Abbott seemed almost relieved that somebody supernatural had finally done SOMETHING.
If this were a TV game show, it would be called Denial Of Reality. Politicians with the NRA brand on their flanks would be the perennially returning champs.
So, once again we perform the empty exercise of shouting, "Who wants to stop this madness?" And then we stand quite still and listen. And the moment passes. And then this happens again in another place starring another kid who would be merely troubled except ... you know ... guns.
And the NRAers will go to church this Sunday. And they will pray for the deity's will. And they will say, "Show me a sign!" And they will see this and then they will see another sign and then the signs will pile up and they will say, "Show me a sign!"
Has a civilian population ever paid so dear a price for the selfish desires of a minority? Somewhere between 5 and 14 million Americans are NRA members, out of a population of about 310 million citizens, and somehow they are allowed to control any efforts to prevent gun violence.
So, put this column on the spike, Gail, and plan to run it again next week or next month or both. This sequel is Ground Hog Day II--A Hail of Bullets.
6
I am disgusted at the inaction. I am disgusted by the amount of weapons floating around in our society.
At a bear minimum we need to apply strict criminal liability on gun owners. Those who fail to maintain control over their weapons need to be charged with any crimes committed with their weapons.
Send the owners to prison. They are culpable. Make the risk of owning a gun as significant as possible.
1
Too late, Gail. Americans overwhelmingly elect people who see this as an acceptable price for unlimited gun rights and zero gun responsibility. This country simply does not care. That is the cold ugly truth you cannot deny or explain away.
2
Remember Jonathan Swift's satirical proposal that the English solve the problem of the poor children and hunger in Ireland by having them eaten.
I guess we have to look at Republican lawmakers as being in a similar vein. They want to toddy to their constituents by ending abortion but still want a way to get rid of all those unnecessary kids by having them killed off in schools.
Sadly, Swift's idea was only fiction while that of the Republicans is only too real.
5
I would have held out hope if the current president of the US had a speck of decency in him. The patron saint of the NRA, Trump is perfectly positioned to effect a giant Nixon-in-China step: go to the NRA and ask them to start a domestic peace process between themselves and the American people.
1
The NRA likes to blame the gun violence on "mental illness." But an obsession with guns is a form of mental illness. In their paranoid delusions the NRA thinks that any gun control law will inevitably lead to a ban on all guns. They are obsessed with this notion and use it to justify possession of weapons of mass murder. That is insane.
The Supreme Court recently upheld the "traditional" ownership of guns, but also said that dangerous and unusual weapons could be banned. So what is the traditional USE of an AK-47 or any other military weapon? Like Canada, we should permit ownership of traditional weapons like hunting rifles but ban all others.
1
The original purpose of the Second Amendment was to give bands of armed white men ("well-regulated militia") carte blanche to terrorize the enslaved population of Virginia and parts south, and be ready to suppress an anticipated slave revolt.
Today, it still supports white supremacy, but it has morphed into gun worship, calling into play the religious freedom protections of the First Amendment.
The right to worship guns is more important than the right to raise children.
2
We will never ban guns but perhaps we can institute laws that will alter the behavior of those who own them. For example, this latest shooting was apparently carried out using the father's gun. Why wasn't that locked up? The fact it wasn't should result in consequences for the gun owner as well as the perpetrator of the crime. The father's negligence, in my view, makes him an accessory to this crime.
2
The only one to blame is the GOP/NRA of the USA
1
When the Texas tower shooting happened all those years ago my husband and I were employed at one of the outstanding U.S. colleges. There was stunned silence on campus, followed by the quiet that shock sometimes induces. And that continued for weeks.
Now our high school students are waiting to be the victims of the next shooting. I am ashamed and saddened that our country has allowed this. And I am anxious for all the students and teachers - and churchgoers and concertgoers - I know.
2
It's not just the guns. It's also the society. We have a broken society when people feel that killing is a good way to be heard - and possibly the only way to be heard.
Making it about guns only is how Richard Daley justified ignoring anything but (essentially unsupervised) law enforcement in addressing Chicago's violent crime situation. He let education and development burn across much of the south and west sides. Despite some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation, things got worse, and still he blamed the guns. He used them as an excuse for dehumanizing more than half of the city he was sword to serve. We cannot get so fixated on countering misguided NRA rhetoric that we become him.
Guns are dangerous, and they absolutely warrant improved regulation and the elimination of loopholes. I am completely on board with improved gun laws. I'm even more focused on the high percentage of gun homicides that are ignored every day, because they happen in poor, black urban locations.
But we also need to work on the rage, the tribalism, the us-vs-them mentality regarding absolutely everything. We're seeing event after event in which rage and disconnect are staring us in the face, and we're responding by becoming more enraged and less connected. We're self-radicalizing.
We have to work at it every day, and we're not close to that.
I'll only briefly mention the multiple media outlets switching to a celebrity wedding with vestigial royalist qualities. It's embarrassing.
3
The problem is simple. Guns. The solution equally simple. If the number of people being killed in this country by guns were equaled by the number of deaths due to eating bad lettuce would we stand by and let the bad lettuce continue to be sold? Of course not. There would be riots and a mass banning of the produce, kind'a like what has already happened lately.
So yes, the solution is simple. But it requires a ruling elite class to stop being held in thrall to a rationality increasingly absurd and at odds with the reality on the ground. But this will not happen until the situation becomes "up close and personal" for them.
Consequently let me go out on a George Carlin styled limb and make a prediction similar to the one he made about church shootings well before it happened. They will not change until someone stands up in the gallery at a full session of Congress, or the Senate, and does to them what is now routinely being done to our children.
And that day will come, given the existing trend. Mark my words that day will come.
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
The GOP/NRA Party, OR, WE the People.
Whose Country is it ????
7
Phyliss, it’s the GOP/NRA of the USA
1
Too late; and it's mind-numbing you even wrote the headline. We never stop lying about who we are.
2
Everyone needs to vote against the NRA. Liberals need to get off the couch and vote in the midterms.
3
I won't speak for others, but I haven't gotten use to these horrendous school shootings and I won't ever consider these crimes as anything other than heartbreaking and tragic. But, I think it does a disservice to the complex causations of these awful events to assert that this problem and other violent crimes committed by people using firearms is primarily about the abundance and access to firearms in America. Grant Duwe, a criminologist affiliated with the Minnesota Department of Corrections has examined the records for mass shootings (e.g. at least four victims) in the U.S. from 1915 to 2017. Of the 185 records of mass shootings he has uncovered that have occurred during the past 105 years, only one female has been involved. Some women who live in the U.S. own (legally and illegally) firearms. And all women who live in the U.S. are exposed to the same abundance of and access to firearms as are men. So clearly, there are important factors other than access and abundance that are contributing to these mass shootings in particular and violent gun crime in general. We need to fund more research to inform effective policy in this regard. And the Dickey Amendment only applies to research conducted by the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. The National Science Foundation and the DOJ National Institute of Justice are not affected by the aforementioned amendment. Research is so much better than conventional wisdom in informing effective policy to address these issues.
2
US firearms policy is built upon carving out space and excuses to shoot other people.
I get it, these are irrational times but how can anyone say that the problem is guns? Years ago guns were more prevalent and much easier to get than they are now and we never had shootings like this. The guns haven’t changed but society and our culture has. Mocking of religion and teaching everyone that they are a victim has not served us well.
3
None of the other developed nations on the planet have our number of mass murders, guess why? They don't have the number of guns we do.
You hit the nail on the head. The culture of American teens today revolves around social media, violent video games, drugs, and self indulgence. Guns are only a tool for unbalanced teens to act out against their perceived detractors.
1
The US has been flooded with guns specifically designed to kill people and little else over the past three decades.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "It is the guns,Stupid." Sadly, we are anesthetized to violence. When 2,3,and 4 year olds have been getting shot,for years, in our cities, nothing was done; no mass demonstrations. When teenagers are shot down in our cities, no outrage, no mass demonstrations. When shootings occur ,daily, in our cities, just another day in the "hood",right? No mass demonstrations. Ho hum. Columbine? An aberration, right? An Arizona congresswoman and six year old killed? A deranged lone gunman,right? An anomaly. Twenty six and seven year olds,slaughtered? Oh well. Another "mentally ill" person. Vegas? Ho hum. Just another day in Amerika. The NRA sings ka-ching,ka-ching. The gop prays, nothing to see here,move along. Until the next time, ho-hum.
5
All the infantile praying indicates that Americans don't even believe shooting deaths are real, only that the victims have arrived sooner in what is called "a better place".
2
Tim, a great comment, and well deserved to excoriate both Emperor Trump, and the Disguised Global Capitalist EMPIRE that he and most of the gutless, paid, and lying Congress critters work for and 'service' (as Bulls 'service' cows).
However, Slick Willie's comment, "It's the economy, stupid" --- along with "It's the guns, stupid" --- both undershoot the real extent of our seminal, hidden, and cancerous tumor metastasizing in our 'body politic', which is the meta-causal "disease of Republics" (as Franklin and all our founders knew from their deep understanding of ancient and Roman history):
"It's the EMPIRE, stupid".
2
2nd killer kid with guns from dad.
1
Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ......... silence
5
"As usual he wasn’t telling the truth.”
This statement and the usual "thoughts and prayers" signifies the thought process of Trump. Tell enough lies and people will believe they are true.
Thoughts and prayers is exactly what the shot callers in the NRA want to hear, and only what they want to hear.
The red hats are also in line with that NRA mantra and Trump possibly fears the loss of his support from the red hats more than the anger his, and many members of Congress fear, from one of their generous benefactors-the NRA.
So, the "thoughts and prayers" statement is all we will see from Trump, along with his usual lies, and Congress.
For the NRA, these victims were merely collateral damage in their battle to "preserve the second amendment".
Abolishment of the NRA and the imposition of strict gun laws is long overdue in America. There is no excuse for ordinary citizens to carry weapons. Age restrictions should apply to all universally at any age.
Ak 47’s belong to the army and the police only Larger weapons are appropriate only for the hunting and shooting ranges and should stay there.
Nothing less will due. It is time. It has been time for many years. Our lives and those of our children depend on collecting the guns and crushing the NRA.
6
Preaching perpetual insurrection is pure unadulterated treason.
The problem is a Constitution written when people owned people, defecated in bowls, drew water from wells and often hunted their own dinner. The right to bear arms once made sense. They no longer do.
Get rid of the 2nd amendment now.
10
Yes, President Dennison, remind us how you’re not afraid of the NRA.
5
Until you allow guns in the house and senate, absolutely nothing is going to change. You can take your editorials and thoughts and deposit it in a landfill.
2
Thank You!
1
Too late.
3
"thoughts and prayers". Says the "leaders" of the ONLY Country where this slaughter regularly occurs. Gee, what's different ??? Until WE, the people, VOTE OUT all members of the GOP/NRA Party, this will NEVER, EVER stop. It will only accelerate: more people, more guns. Do your part, in November. Please.
8
Boycott Texas.
Boycott Florida.
Boycott Georgia.
Boycott Maine and New Hampshire.
Boycott all states whose lax state gun laws endanger their own citizens and those of us in states with strict gun laws, by providing easy access to guns.
Power of the purse.
Power of the people.
US Congress will not act.
Pressure state legislatures by attacking their bottom lines.
Keep your $$$ out of Bad Gun Law States.
Vacation elsewhere.
Hold professional conferences elsewhere.
Invest elsewhere.
Tell these state governments why your dollars are going . . . Elsewhere.
It’s a Thing You Can Do.
Thoughts and prayers are for charlatans.
Only $$$$money$$$ talks in these United States.
Dead kids are silent and powerless.
4
Thank you, Ms. Collins!!! Thank you!
1
Nothing will change until the staunch Republican/NRA constituency suffer themselves. It will take a tidal wave of personal grief and suffering to shake these people out of their second amendment stupor.
4
If crazed gunmen were shooting "service animals" at the same rate they were shooting up high schools- both Democrats and Republicans would unite to do something. The fact they are only killing people- well then it becomes a bi-partisan problem and nobody really cares. Sad but true-Unlicensed dogs, with no skill set, wearing a red vest purchased on the internet has more value than a human life. See you in the Whole Foods shopping Cart! Woof Woof!
1
How does a "well-regulated militia" justify bloody slaughter in the hallways of our schools?
Who thinks that the 1st Amendment and the 2nd Amendment are comparable Holy Writ?
The Trumpian 40% are imbeciles when it comes to their understanding of the Constitution. Or of human nature.
Herein lies the death of a once nobly envisioned Democratic Republic.
8
There is a word for Donald Trump - “hypocrite” - to quote Mark Shields on NPR political week in review.
2
Ouch, sorry, I'm used to it.
I am with my home state Senator Chris Murphy; I have nothing original to say. The commenters on this page are also saying the same things we all say every time yet another deranged white man, (yes, there is a very real gender/race aspect to all this,) mows down a bunch of innocent people and breaks the hearts of many more. The latter will not recover in their lifetimes.
There is an election coming in a few months. It might be a good thing if every candidate for every office, from local zoning commission to governor or senator, were asked these two yes/no questions;
Are you an NRA member?
Will you support repealing the 2nd amendment?
And then vote accordingly.
4
My, my how times have changed.
Mom: "Hi, honey, how did school go for you today?"
Kid: "Oh, we had a shooting again."
Mom: "Did anyone get hurt?"
Kid: "Yeah, a couple of my best friends got hit. The good news is the perp killed himself."
Mom: "That's great! By the way, how did art class go today?"
When will the madness stop? If anyone in the US had any courage, they'd lobby for the strictest of gun laws on the planet. Until then, kids will die pursuing their dreams in our schools.
3
The moment I switched the channel on my TV and first saw coverage of this shooting my immediate thought was "Oh God...not again!" But: yes...again! Really, how many times can we go through this? How many more lives must be offered in sacrifice to the great god GUN...the god of the NRA's idolatry?
3
The decline and fall of my America, 10 students at a time. In the Middle East or Afghanistan the killing is often done by people born as Muslims. In Yemen we help our ally Saudi Arabia kill the innocent. In Israel skilled snipers do the job.
But in America, the multiple-victim killings are carried out most often by "One Of US" (footnote), often bearing weapons provided by mom or dad, or just bought at the local weapon dispensary.
Today I chose for the first time not to read a single article, why should I? The only things that are new are: The name of the location, the name of the killer, the name of the victims.
Perhaps it is time for a National High School Students Killed by One of Us Memorial, each name engraved in polished black stone.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
"One of Us" the book by Åsne Seierstad about the worst mass killing and its executor, no outsider but just an ordinary Norwegian, last name Breivik.
2
Of course it's about guns. Anyone who says otherwise is deluded or evil.
5
I own an AR-15 and I don't use it to shoot people. I've never even killed an animal with it, although I've fired tens of thousands of rounds.
I'd give up my AR-15 if the cops give up AR-15s. Otherwise I support all forms of gun control except bans on assault rifles with cops getting to keep them and repealing the second amendment.
Just you know I'm not some opiate addicted coal miner, I'm actually a transgender marijuana consultant who went to MIT. Most gun owners aren't even part of the NRA.
The assumption that gun owners are either hate filled or idiots is naive. We feel just as much pain at shootings, especially school shootings, as the average person. I want them to stop and I'm willing to take classes and background checks and ammo stamps and gun registration to do it. I just also believe the police and populace should have the same kinds of guns in a free society. I'd even give up my AR if the cops did.
We all have to be willing to compromise a bit. I also believe that arming teachers and having resource officers in every school. Gun control takes time, these killings wont stop Day 1 after gun control.
1
This all makes the days of 'Duck and cover' seem so innocent.
1
I'll let Kurt Vonnegut post this comment. This is from "Fates Worse Than Death" --
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, “ sayeth article II of the Bill of Rights, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Perfect! I wouldn’t change a word of it. I only wish the NRA and its jellyfish, well-paid supporters in legislatures both State and Federal would be careful to recite the whole of [the Second Amendment], and then tell us how a heavily armed man, woman or child, recruited by no official, led by no official, given no goal by any official, motivated and restrained only by his or her personality and perception of what is going on, can be considered a member of a well-regulated militia. -- Kurt Vonnegut
10
"Our mission, however, is pretty clear. The problem is guns, not knives or too many school doors. And when children lose their lives to a mass shooting, we have to keep talking about it."
We have to do a lot more than "keep talking about it," Gail." We got to vote out of office all the nincompoops and cowards in Congreass who refuse to do anything to address the gun violence problem in America.
6
Follow the money. It all leads back to where the NRA donated. And we know the Republicans receive a lot of financial support from the NRA.
So....the answer is...expose who takes NRA money. How do they sleep at night?
2
Those darned grizzlies in Wyoming are at fault.
2
Voters, show some courage and vote against reps who accept money from the nra.
4
Too late, we are already used to it.
Let's cut to the chase, nothing is going to change.
Like Parkland and the dozens prior, this Texas event will be a big yawn in a few days.
Anybody still remember Vegas? It was only 9 months ago.
Murdering a classroom of first graders a few years ago had zero impact beyond a couple news cycles.
This country is disgusting. If November does not produce any meaningful change, I'm leaving this god forsaken place, as the electorate will have proven that it is simply too stupid to hang on to democracy. I spent 6 years in the military to defend this country and it's constitution. What a waste of time. The current congress and executive openly violates the constitution daily. Claims require evidence: Gorsuch, emoluments, congress does not respond to the will of the majority (tax cut),.
3
How about requiring each politician to list all sources of campaign contributions? It might prove punishing in the upcoming election cycle to be branded an NRA stooge.
1
"Please, Let's Never Get Used to This"
Gail - a significant percentage of Americans aren't used to it, they're JUST FINE with it.
Wake up.
2
" A man reaps what he sows ". Fine. Then maybe we shouldn't sow a tremendous amount of GUNS and ammunition. Right ???
1
I love democracy, so I could never hate conservatives. And rural people do need guns. But this is just too much! How much more can our national soul take? The NRA is like the Devil, leading Republicans astray.
Our Congress is being held hostage.
Our country is being held hostage.
Change will only come when we take money out of politics. That's the only way to silence the NRA and release the hostages.
Or....vote them out!
1
This and every gun death for the next 2 years = Trump: Making America Great Again.
1
Thank you Gail...well said as usual.
1
I solemnly swear to support no restrictions on guns as soon as the Congress, Senate, WH, SCOTUS and the NRA to let good guys with guns into all of their buildings.
And additionally, once again armed officers on the premises.
And do we really think it’s a good idea to arm underpaid teachers who put up with awful kids day in and day out? I’d argue they have more reasons to go on rampage than a 17 year old boy
1
THE best, fastest way to stop this insanity?
VOTE
VOTE BLUE
VOTE YOU MUST
A million times, VOTE THE GOP OUT.
God Help Us.
1
Senator Ted Cruz was interviewed on CNN yesterday describing the evil of the Santa Fe school shootings. Does anyone remember the campaign clip where he is seen frying bacon on the barrel of a gun? Too many monsters in congress.
1
But, but, but these dead kids are just the price we pay for the right to bear arms. Let's think of them as patriots as we celebrate our freedoms.
2
We are used to this & every time it happens we get more gun crazy and get more guns. Let’s talk about what creates a school shooter: horrible school experiences.
Time to amend the 2nd amendment. Many gun owners are single issue voters. Are you?
1
Though I can't read it all, notice how there haven't been any "thoughts and prayers" comments. Guess that saw got old.
2
Nothing will change until we as a country reign in the NRA and the zealots on the right who care more about guns than children!
1
Thoughts and prayers....
O-o-k-a-a-y... That was easy enough.
Knives!!, says our president! Nasty things, especially in the semi-automatic version, deadly at 1000 yards. Quiet, too! If the Las Vegas murderer had used knives, the slaughter would still be going on. No one would have noticed.
No way, says TX Gov. Greg Abbott, could this one have been prevented. No red flags. Except for the "Born to Kill" T-shirt in the "social" media post.
The NRA is heaving sighs of relief that...this time...an AR-15 was not the weapon of choice. Thanks to the gods of low income his dad couldn't afford one, perhaps.
Just as the above remarks are flippant, illogical, so too will be the choruses and responses emanating from the halls of Congress, the NRA and, as already demonstrated, the Texas Governor's office.
We can allow Trump, Abbott and the Freedom Caucus to continue the nosedive of American values into the dirt, or we can fix things in November.
3
Are Americans mentally sane? If yes, why doesn’t everyone get up from their couches and PROTEST against laws that allow people to have guns?
This story was not even being covered by CNN, MSNBC, or the government news network by 6:00 PM the day it happened. And this morning, all news coverage worldwide is on the magic, the splendor, the pure beauty of the Royal Wedding. The shooting is not even a story. It's just another day.
1
we all know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing (i.e., nothing) over and over again, and expecting a different result.
America is insane.
2
Trump told the cheering crowd their right to bear arms “will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your president.”
And, Ms. Collins, the American "president" means just that. Money is more important to him than a child's life; a teenager's life; dare I say it: anyone's life. Just keep those campaign contribution coming.
I'm afraid that as long as an indifferent, purchased (by the National Rifle Association) Congress on Capitol Hill, atop piles of money from the N.R.A., that "we will get used to this."
I can imagine what Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and other paid N.R.A. hirelings tell one another behind closed doors as they sneer at us and the survivors of babies, kids, teens, young adults: "deal with it."
And somewhere Wayne LaPierre is smiling.
2
Tthe NRA will keep its grip on the country and shootings will continue. Roe V Wade will be overturned within the next few years. This is America everyone - ....sad.
1
The NRA are the animals that Trump was talking about.
We need to take our country back from the gun profiteers — you wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals.
Indeed the U.S. has "the dumbest laws on gun control in the world."
1
So simple....no guns, no one gets shot.
2
We are already used to it. These are now statistics like traffic fatalities. Soon, mass shootings, like single traffic fatalities, won't even make cable news. Not only the right to get a firearm with no more effort than a trip through a McDonald's drive thru, but who'd going to pay to turn our schools into fortresses.
1
Yes, President Dennison, tell us again how you’re not afraid of the NRA.
1
Unfortunately it's the psychology of human nature that when one is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus, they will get used to it. I know it feels excruciating to the victims and their families that this could happen, but I barely even flinched when I saw the news break. And I probably won't read anything about it. Our country is a disaster.
3
Sorry Gail but to claim "it's just about guns-that all folks!" is naive. Yes the proliferation of firearms in our country is a BIG factor, along with a gun culture that began with the American Revolution and was instilled with the TV westerns of the 50s & 60s, BUT rampant free market, unbridled, uncontrolled capitalism is the largest contributor to our mind set. Yes, the Europeans have stricter gun laws, but they also have free national healthcare, free education through college, 6 weeks vacation, a week off at Christmas & Easter, and access to decent working conditions forced by government regulation on employer activity. Don't expect a "hands off" approach to corrupt business that exploits the common folk & makes the American worker the hardest, most productive & least leisurely human in the Western world to enforce laws restricting guns. Guns are a business just like oil, Pharma, insurance companies, and real estate tycoons & bankers.
As Calvin Coolidge said "the business of America is business". PTSD is affecting more than just military veterans. It's affecting the common family & some of that is being manifested in gun violence.
3
We live in an extremely violent culture that idolizes truculence and gun-wielding heroes. We are divisive, angry, and filled with envy and vitriol. We distrust our very neighbors, and many Americans feel the need to be armed and dangerous at all times, even when dining in the local coffee shop.
I am a teacher, and the other day a student asked me "Why can't we just all be nice to each other?" I had no answer for her.
Our politicians should stop pretending that the second amendment is relevant to contemporary life - when the government decides to go to war, it is now equipped to arm its soldiers.
Somehow, we need to find out why some of our citizens are angry, resentful, and distrusting to the point of violence and revenge, and help them live more productive and fulfilling lives. And we need to end the violence - no more violent movies, video games, books...no more dangerous weapons for sale. Let's all stop glorifying war, bombs, high speed car chases, explosive devices, and all types of violence.
6
If violent video games and movies made people kill, you would have read about me shooting up a public place by now. My interests are cooking, exercise, dogs, and volunteering to get food and other resources to vulnerable families. Tell me about any country that controls guns, has the freedom to view anything or play any game, and has one tenth the gun violence epidemic we do. You can't.
The problem is guns. Don't lump in those imaginary conservative boogeyman the right uses to obscure the issue. Enough is enough.
1
"And we need to end the violence - no more violent movies, video games, books..."
In addition to abolishing the Second Amendment, do you propose to abolish the First Amendment as well?
I am sure someone has already thought or said this -- but sadly America has already gotten used to this.
3
Every society has it's share of disturbed individuals, some of whom even grow up to become "leaders" of a sort, but ours is the only one where this sort of occurrence is almost routine. Where apparently normal people, usually white males, suddenly commit mass murders, always with GUNS. It is horrible, yet sadly predictable when, in areas of conflict, unregulated militias commit such acts. It is unfathomable why we continue to allow it to happen in an otherwise peaceful society. The problem is not gun owners per se. It is the sheer number and lack of regulation of guns. This is not hard folks. Vote in November!!
3
In the landmark case of the District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual’s “right . . . to keep and bear Arms” for purposes of self-defense. However, in the majority opinion, Justice Scalia made the following common sense observation:
“There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. ___ (2008). Thus, we do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose.”
Given that observation and the fact that the individual’s right to possess a weapon is for purposes of self-defense, ownership of an assault weapon is not protected by the Second Amendment.
5
Please note that in the most recent tragedy in Texas, an "assault weapon" was not used. The criminal used a shotgun and .38 revolver (handgun) - https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/us/texas-school-shooting/index.html .
I wish solving the problem of violence was as easy as focusing on the tool used to commit such violence. However, people who intend to kill will find the means to kill, whether that includes knives, guns, machetes (nearly a million people were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide mostly with machetes), automobiles, or something else (e.g. bombs, pressure cookers).
To truly solve the mass violence issue, you have to focus on the root causes of this violence. Guns and other inanimate objects do not force people to use these devices to kill.
Watch ‘Miss Sloane!’
The solution is handed to us on a platter. The NRA rates congressional candidates. We must refuse to vote for candidates that the NRA rates highly. It would be a start.
12
Over 2 trillion dollars has been spent on counter terrorism measures since 9/11. Maybe the measures have worked since only 100 people have died in terrorist attacks in the US since that time. Maybe some of those funds could be used to counter The NRA and their republican lackeys who are basically responsible for holding our nation hostage resulting in about 90 GUN DEATHS A DAY.
5
The NRA is awash in cash. Republicans are awash in greed. It is a match made in heaven.
I fully expect a presidential tweet at any moment lamenting all the doors and windows in our schools. Sad! Indeed.
6
It is sad that preventing the deaths of children at school depends upon a majority of voters casting their ballots based upon a single issue because the United States Capitol is nearly devoid of moral conviction or courage, but that time is here.
6
What is Ms. Collins' proposal? Confiscate all firearms nationwide? A law prohibiting "assault" rifles would not have prevented this tragedy; the sociopath was armed with a shotgun and a revolver, two very basic firearms with limited ammunition capacity.
It is the murderer who is responsible for this horrific crime, not the weapons. Until the left admits that this is the actual problem the majority of the country will not respond to a call for more "control" of firearms.
2
Do you know what would have helped? Maybe you "responsible gun owners" should take steps to secure your guns so that your children (and thieves) can't get at them. Would that be too much to ask? Or is that too much responsibility for you?
Great! So let’s make sure everyone can get access to health care, including mental health care, without co-pays or deductibles. Oh, wait, that’s evil government health care? Never mind, then.
How about we investigate the NRA and the Sport Shooters Association, the gun manufacturers. Then let’s ridicule gun obsessives. Then let’s buy back guns. Then let’s after a period of amnesty start seizing guns and melting them down.
And since you refuse to see weapons as being part of the problem, clearly you are incapable of making rational decisions with regards to them. So let’s take your guns, too. I’m sorry, but it’s clear you need intervention.
And until it’s not so easy to get guns this will continue.
"Used to this..."?
You're kidding.
This is America, the former home of can-do spirit, 'we got this' attitude, the glowing face addressing the beautiful future.
We're not only used to this, we practice for it.
Just review your own Gallery of What To Do With Children Just After They've Been Shot At In School, or GoWTDWCJATBSAIS as we call it.
Kids in lines. Kids' hands on heads. Kids with their hands on other kids. Kids melting down waiting for mom or dad. Kids in the correct area as they wait to see who died and who was just severely wounded. It looks like Spring Day at High School, everybody outside, enjoying the weather.
It's almost like we got this so good we can't wait for the next time, to try out new stuff.
Senator Cruz got this, too. Droning on about how much he cares, how he'll do everything, everything, to keep America's children safe (except remove the guns that kill them), about dead kids=heroes so they stop being dead kids and become little inspirations.
And the Santa Fe police chief who notes this is an award-winning safety school with the whole package: metal detection, officers stationary and roaming, well-trained teachers, and still this happened. He said you can't stop a person with gun if they really want to shoot.
Then he became Cruz junior, and launched the usual litany: harden the school, make it more like prison, inspect every student every time they enter or leave. Just leave America's guns alone.
This is America. And we are so lost.
9
We, the people, are being held hostage. I do not understand how over 300 million people can be at the mercy of 6 million NRA members. How did this happen? Why do we allow it to continue? We must get everyone we can to the polls in November and begin to vote these people out. We can no longer afford to have the same members of congress over and over again. It is destructive to our well-being as a nation. Please, everyone, vote for candidates who will actually do something about this sickness of our soul that is more apparent every day.
8
Like our recently opened museum in Alabama which memorializes the black victims of lynchings, a dark ugly period of American history, once we take action and find some functional solutions, I predict we will establish a museum dedicated to the child victims of mass shootings.
And like that museum, we will visit, shake out heads and ask ourselves how did we let this happen, and continue for so long?And we shall be ashamed of our past.
8
We shouldn't get used to this, but of course we are, and that is what is really dangerous. These horrors feed on themselves, each one making the next more likely. As people become more insecure, they lose trust in collective security, becoming ever more alienated, angry, and desperate. It's infectious, and ends in a Hobbesian war of all against all. People turn to guns for security when they trust no one else. That's why people join the NRA: They have lost trust in collective security. And so, seeking its strength, the NRA pours acid on trust, feeding fear. That is how it gains power. This nightmare ends when it becomes possible for us to trust each other again. How do we do that?
Sadly, we have long since become "used to this." Senseless killing by gunfire is now very much part of the American mosaic. It happens everywhere. Nobody is free from from the potential of falling as victim. This is who we are. Only we can change it.
1
Don't you know that it is more important to restrict females' "morning after pill" than males' firearms?
For the sake of "innocent human life," defined as a quality of innocence that ends at birth.
The GOP principle that "your uterus is mine, your kids are yours" is as much a moral principle as "love'em and leave'em."
Born children need more protection than a compelling debate on when their lives began.
6
I am tired if the explanation that the shooter suffered from mental illness. Let us call them what they are for sure, murderers.
There are millions of people who suffer from mental illness who do not run around murdering people.
This is always the strategy of the Republicans and the NRA. And some in the Mental illness business. It is hypocritical to use these poor victims lives to go after a political agenda. In fact, it is downright hellish.
There is no excuse, either by the House of Representatives or the Senate to not change the laws governing guns. Gun reform should be number one on the agenda. There is no excuse for not passing Universal background checks before guns are put into anyone's hands. There is no excuse for not banning bump stocks or assault weapons. No one needs these to go hunting or target practice.
The Second Amendment never included bump stocks or assault weapons. When it was adopted, the weapons of choice were hand guns, rifles, shot guns, muskets and bayonets. It is a false argument that both the NRA and the Congress use for doing nothing.
So long as the NRA and the Republican Congress is in charge of our country, we can expect the murdering of more innocent victims.
As for the Republican Congress, they are responsible for all that is wrong with our country.
Independents and Democrats will need to turn out in huge numbers in November to change the direction of this country.
3
Gail, the only thing I have gotten used to is a Congress that does nothing. Amazingly, a Congress banned LAWN DARTS because of children’s deaths. This should be a high priority in our Congress, but I thoughts and prayers are the best we can expect from them.
6
A worthy sentiment too, too late. This won't even make the news by Tuesday, maybe Monday.
2
In 1972, I lost 3 close high school friends in a tragic car accident, as they returned to campus after swim practice. Just as Florida and Texas high school students who hid under desks ask themselves, “why them and not me?” I wonder the same because this was my carpool, but I had stopped going to practice a few weeks before the accident.
I think of the accident most days....often through tears and nausea, and I am now 62 years old. Seatbelt laws that were not yet in place would have saved my carpool pals’ lives. Come on Congress, do your job as Australia did. And, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick....your actions following our recent Texas shootings are incompetent, to put it lightly. Last night, I thought back to how many doors were necessary to get to class in my high school and perhaps use to escape a fire from the chemistry labs: 14. Dan Patrick, your “limit doors of schools suggestion makes me question if you ever WENT to high school....
2
I wish Chris Murphy would run for President in 2020. Against Trump. The searing memory of Sandy Hook versus the big bad wolf who IS afraid of the NRA.
3
I just can't figure out why these mass shootings happen all the time in the USA, but don't happen in any other countries. Even the old fashion run of the mill single shootings & murders ....hundreds per day ....happen in the USA but don't happen anywhere else. Same mental health issues exist everywhere. Texas Gov says it's caused by too many entrances & exits ...but we have same number of doors in Canada. Politician in this article blames it on Overcoats, but everywhere has overcoats.....I wonder what could be the reason this only happens in the USA
2
This is what we have come to expect from a president and Republican Congress beholden to the N.R.A. Thoughts and prayers; now let's move on.
Time to level with the American people and clearly say what you believe: We're okay with our children being gunned down in our schools, and we're not going to do a single thing about it. Deal with it.
That is a campaign promise they would surely keep.
2
It's time. It's time to indict the NRA and recalcitrant members of Congress as War Criminals or aiding and abetting domestic terrorism. Perhaps a suit can be brought to The Hague on behalf of secondary school children in the U.S. As farcical as this may sound, every other sane attempt at discussion, action, and resolve has failed. We have to try something different, something unique, something to shake the cobwebs of indifference.
3
I thought I was reading old news, yet here it is again. I'm all tapped out. If your guns are the priority then you say your prayers, accept the consequences and move on. I'm sure the children lost will rest in peace in their heaven knowing that Daddy can still hunt.
2
Guns are tools. They are without intelligence. They don't care what the target is when a bullet is discharged. They are simply doing the job they were intended to do. They wound, maim, and kill without a speck of remorse.
Like motor vehicles and much common machinery, guns are dangerous when used improperly or carelessly. Most of us would not let our children use a chain saw or car without training and supervision. Even when proper precautions are taken, most parents are wary - even worried as their kids take the wheel.
Guns used to be viewed with the same caution and concern. They might have been admired for their workmanship, but they were not viewed as objects of adoration or a way to make a political statement. They were tools built to kill.
With the help of the GOP and NRA, they no longer are viewed as tools to be respected. They are badges to wear, statements that greater violence is the best answer to violence, a birthright, a guarantee against government excess.
Until we again see guns as tools meant to rip apart flesh, we will not change the argument. Guns will remain the proxy for many arguments and beliefs that are destructive to our democracy, our safety, ourselves.
2
Guns cause violence, express violence. Guns are designed, manufactured, sold to humans that intend to kill, as in murder. Guns are weapons of mass destruction. I'd rather be killed than kill another human, not just because I'm a nun, but because it is not in me to cause harm. We can defend through other skillful means or we can harm, mostly ourselves through aggression and hate. Reverse this cycle through removing guns from the hands of the human. Even animals don't use guns.
3
actually the problem, the immediate problem that keeps our kids at risk is "too many school doors" a problem that can be remedied overnight while the gun control-mental health-cultural rot talk goes on...an on...an on.
by all means let the talkers talk and ye spinners spin (of course it's all trump's fault, of course sen murphy's failure of words is due rather to his grief than his failure of imagination as an elected in the legislative body that makes our laws), but while the blather goes on, let's at least protect the kids, as we do the courts, from next time...as we promise them we will every time after the last time.
the shooting are a tragedy, the politcals (see the texas governor this time) who face the cameras after each slaughter to tell us that "the time for talk is past, now its time for action" are a disgrace...they are as harmful to the well being of our kids as the guns.
1
America’s “exceptionalism” is now over. The history books will mark 2000 as the beginning of the decline of the great American Empire and the start of the rise of China and the imperial east. Unbeknownst to Mr Trump and Republican company, the cornerstone of America’s greatness was it’s educational system. From the first colonials, through the the breakneck pace of 20 Century development and innovation, education was the center of all things American.
As we moved west and clusters of people gathered together for safety one of the first buildings built that signified safety and stability was the one room school house.
Now that symbol, the center of our community’s and the essence of American stability and yes power is crumbling. It’s physical structure is crumbling. Our intellectual best are no longer seeking careers in education. A narrow curriculum no longer encourages the flow of free thought and discovery. Now murderous school violence has made our children paranoid and fearful.
This is the New America. Who would want to come here and live here. Who would want to stay here, put down roots and raise a family. If I was young I would considered moving elsewhere where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are more than just empty words and your physical space is not surrounded by an unstable populace with 300 million guns.
Young people make your stand and grab the future that you are entitled too. Your lives and our future depend on it.
3
The only way to escape gun violence in America is to leave America. This problem will resolve itself the day after the Palestinians and the Israelis sign a peace agreement with a two-state solution---i.e., never.
I've been to Scotland six times in the last six years and have been struck by the fact there are almost no guns in that country. Even the police don't carry guns. Unarmed civilians don't get shot because their cell phone resembles a gun. People in other countries don't have a Second Amendment obsession. Other countries have sensible gun laws. America simply can't get its act together on this issue.
8
"I guess God wanted all those children to come home to him (sic)"
"Guns don't kill people, doors do"
"Mental illness kills people"
"SInce people are killed by cars, trucks, knives too (add your favorite here) should we also ban them?"
The NYT graphic today, demonstrating clearly the response of Congress to the shootings since Sandy Hook, predicts that we can expect nothing from Congress again this time.
And, you know that sales of guns will go up this weekend.
Allow guns to be carried into the Capital, and to the halls of Congress - see what happens then.
5
The Parkland survivors became activists, and the Santa Fe survivors will no doubt join them. They are fed up with waiting for the adults to fix this.
What if all high school students boycott school one day per week, perhaps Fridays, in memory of the Santa Fe victims? If this action begins in September with the new school year, and if Congress does nothing, then what will happen if students boycott two days per week during October? The threat of a three-day boycott beginning in November should enliven campaigns and voters!
If still nothing is done, January would begin the 5-day boycott, the end of public schools, the end of "shooting fish in a barrel". Hooray for students demanding their right to an education without targets on their backs!
1
Yiou forgot "thoughts and prayers" as an all too often sentiment following one of these events.
To late,I am used to it, want to know how I could tell? I said to myself “what are the kids going to do now” because Congress is useless.
2
The problem is not guns but the NRA and its millions of fanatic adherents who cling to a primeval notion that guns "protect" them from thieves, robbers, intruders and, yes, even the government. Any analysis of how many people "saved" themselves from harm by using the gun will show the hollowness of their claim.
3
I am sick to death of the NRA, which long ago ceased to represent anyone other than weapons manufacturers. I am sick to death of the grasping Congressmen and women who take contributions and then offer prayers or excuses. I am sick to death of the NRA’s scowling spokesperson, who feeds on the conspiracy-inclined fears of the few citizens who stockpile weapons in preparation for the apocalypse. I am sick to death of irresponsible gun owners who leave their loaded weapons in purses for toddlers to find or unlocked in the house because no one living under THEIR roof is crazy (or angry or just plain irritated) enough to “borrow” those weapons for a mass shooting. I am sick to death of those who are willfully ignorant (or simply ignorant) about the origins, the history, or the wording itself of the 2nd Amendment they value above human life. I am sick to death of worrying whether it’s safe to enter a public place filled with trigger-happy vigilantes itching to draw their weapons. I am sick to death of excuses about alienated young (or not so young) men who are raised in this culture to believe their grievances can be settled only by violence. I am sick to death of our putative leader, who calculates his policies based on how loudly the crowds cheer. I am sick to death of needless death and the false prayers and phoney excuses that follow. I am but one person, but I am the majority and their will be a reckoning.
3
There are two solutions possible
1. Repeal the Second Amendment and prohibit Private ownership of guns
2. Deal with mental illness and criminal gangs (Which perpetrate the vast majority of gun crimes).
Politicians can't do the first and are loath to do the second because of identity politics.
2
In a country as populous as ours — believe it or not, only China and India have more people — the appalling statistics on gun violence still don’t have a lasting, profound impact on our collective psyche. Not enough people are directly affected by mass shootings (or even regular shootings) to alter our behavior at election time.
In other words, we don’t vote out the politicians —mostly Republicans — who are loyal to the gun lobby when we support them for other reasons. Even if if there is a “Blue Wave” in the coming midterms, mass shootings will be one of several factors behind it.
2
Shameful, dangerous, sad, incredible that our government and its leadership lack so much courage in facing the NRA and its membership. My cousin, Sarah Brady made it her lifetime goal to fight gun violence and the NRA, but here we are still at the mercy of a piece of steel. Come on, women.
It's time to support the children and their right to live a life free from fear.
2
All that’s left is our vote . We the people can vote out those who do not take real action.
3
In the early 50's, I was a little kid in CT. My father had a few guns and kept them, unlocked, in the garage, displayed on a homemade gun rack. This was not considered unsafe or unusual. There were no school shootings. Simultaneously, Congress was investigating violence in the media, media directed at young kids, like myself. I was not allowed to own a toy gun, because my father believed guns were not toys. I was not allowed to read comic books, my father said they were too violent (I read the Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes). Likewise, I was not allowed to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon and watch horror films like my friends. Maybe my father was right, perhaps violence can be taught.
As long as American continue to elect majority Republican governments and they remain wholly owned subsidiaries of the NRA, nothing will ever change. Any society so steeped in gun culture is bound to see this type of tragedy unfold over and over again. I suppose we could elect an ethical government which would work toward sane gun policies, but that seems pretty unlikely in today's tribal political world.
1
As we know, cancer is not easy to eradicate, the silver bullet vaccine to prevent it has never materialized. True, we have made great progress among many forms of this disease, greatly increasing the life span of those affected, but we cannot say we have cured it. Such improvements in treatment and prevention, however, are due to the thousands of medical researchers who go to work every day looking for a way to make a dent in the problem, and have come up with many incremental successes. Regarding the gun problem, the cancer that strikes down our school children, Congress has done nothing.
2
I agree - guns are the key problem. But the epidemic of emotional and psychiatric dysfunction among Americans of all ages also has to be noted. We can make strides towards saner gun policy. But until we address the ugliness and emptiness that underlies each and every one of these tragedies, we will not stop the carnage.
1
Change is happening albeit too slowly. Most people, most gun owners, are people of good conscience. State by state laws will be changed, protections put in place. Massachusetts and NY, for example, have 1/4 the average number of gun deaths as does Texas. This is is because they have more regulations. Like a domino, other states will continue to get on board. Speak up. Vote for gun sense candidates. Change seems impossible until it happens.
8
I don't have a lot of sympathy for families who choose to live in Texas, particularly rural Texas. They must know it is a lawless place with little or no social safety net. I'd like to know the election results for Santa Fe in 2016 and earlier. Live by the gun, die by the gun. And yes, I spent months in Texas some years ago.
9
Really? As a New Yorker all my friends have guns (I don’t). Get just outside the city and NY is no better than any state. Try leaving the city sometime.
2
Maybe you should have some sympathy for people too poor to leave.
1
Kristoff had a big article sock full of statistics and a request to regulate guns like cars, but he left out the most important point, personal responsibility. All gun owners should be liable and required to have insurance to pay for damages and if they do not, the lose their guns. This will cut down on number of guns, parents will lock up the guns, because they will be liable, just like they are when Junior uses their car. And kids will not have guns just too expensive. So if you want AK 47 with high capacity, it will cost you a lot in liability and insurance. If you want to get real about guns this is what you have to do.
12
Thank goodness you say the simple truth--the problems is guns. I am a mental health professional with 40 years experience. It is IMPOSSIBLE to predict human behavior. Blaming, explaining, just muddy the waters. IF a disturbed person wanted to shoot someone, it could not happen without a gun. The way to solve the problem of mass shootings is to control (or get rid of) the guns. Why is this a problem? We no longer live in the 1800's or earlier when everyone had a rifle or shotgun hanging over their fireplace. Owning a gun is not more important than stopping the slaughter of children. The second amendment is vague. It does not specifically give anyone the RIGHT to own a gun. It says people have the right to form a militia and arm themselves. Enough said. It is time for ACTION.
11
Face it Gail, mass shootings are already common place and in great part, our bought and paid for Congress is to blame. A vast majority of Americans want the carnage stopped but to what end?
The cure will start with a good voter turnout in November but that will only be the start.
17
There is not much left to say. Mass murders have become ingrained in American society, all in the name of gun ownership without any effective control. This state of affairs was brought about by the faulty interpretation of an archaic constitutional provision that was written back when citizen soldiers were required to bring their own weapons to the fray.
14
The reporting shouldn’t be about our helplessness. It should be about how the NRA functions, who LaPierre has lunch with, who owns stock in arms manufacturers, especially manufacturers of military style weapons, but all manufacturers—what are their names? Who are they? Who is making money to maintain a way of life by insisting that guns represent a legitimate way of life. How much money? It should be about those in the Hollywood world who make millions, nay, billions, off stories that portray guns as normal solutions to problems large and small, as the natural heritage of some supposed frontier where guns supposedly tamed the savage land, both human and animal. It should be about the churches who support our gun world either vocally or through their silence. The stories are all wrong. The reporting is not all wrong, but it is not all right. It’s way past time to get it right. We’ve been used to it a long time and we’re only coming to realize it because it’s being handed down to our kids. They’re learning what our stories are and some are acting them out because they’ve heard our stories—our stories, our culture, through our reporting. Gail’s right. Our culture is wrong. Our world needs more reporters focusing on it. Do what you’re supposed to be doing.
23
This story will be taken up and used by the pro-gun crowd. This is because the shooter used a shotgun legally owned by his father.
No gun reform suggests targeting shotguns or legal gun owners who have children.
I would make all the guns in American disappear tomorrow if I could, but this particular tragedy will only be used to suggest no reform will make any difference (which, for the record, I don't think is true: the deadliness of many events could still be lowered by regulating high-powered rifles, even if it wouldn't have mattered here).
5
You’re right. They will point out that the only gun control needed would have been to properly lock up the fire arms. This kid had intent though, and was smart. His will would have found another way had the father’s guns been properly locked. It was only a matter of time before he got his hands on guns.
The other aspect at fault here is the bullying and those silently complicit with it. Society as a whole needs to evolve and call out the bullies for their demeaning behavior when it happens.
Maybe it is time to reflect upon all of those thoughts and prayers being ceaselessly offered, to no apparent avail. Maybe God is sending us a message that it is time to actually wake up and do something.
I am a big believer in prayer but a bigger believer in sensible gun restriction.
17
The NYT Editorial uses the word 'dither' to describe Congress but perhaps "willful disregard" is more like it when adults are concerned more about power and money than about their children's wellbeing.
Yes, these could be their children. Not just the victims but also the perps. This is no more good guys shooting bad guys. Just children shooting children. And the blood is on NRA's hands. The Republicans' hands. And the NRA enablers' hands.
No, do not bring up the 2nd Amendment. Because this shows the failure of the great American self-governing experiment. Because of what? Because of greed. Because of the thirst for power no blood can quench.
Thanks for listening!
33
you should have to pass a test and get a license to purchase a gun all guns should be registered
and you should have to carry an insurance policy against any damage (harm) caused by that weapon
would this policy be prohibitively expensive? quite possibly .....
33
The insurance idea is a great one. Like auto insurance. Wouldn’t cause less killings though.
1
Trump—the Mass-shootings President! He infamously claimed he could shoot someone in the middle of the street without consequence. Now, as president, he’s unleashed his spirit of cruel disregard for both human life and personal responsibility in the American ethos, beckoning those who will to shoot now under his cover.
27
For those whom are tired of the status qou. Elect those whom are not beholden to the NRA.
19
That would mean never voting for virtually any Republican. Most are in the back pocket of the NRA.
1
Total silence from the “Right to Life” crowd, who value fetuses and controlling women over the lives of kids and teachers at school. Sick hypocrisy. Value the gun makers and their political lobby over the rights of our children and grandchildren to stay alive. All your pious platitudes won’t save you now. I am looking at you, Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Big heroes at the NRA convention. Total cowards in the face of real danger. Total failures at leadership and doing the hard work of arriving at real solutions. No, arming teachers will not save kids at school. There are crying needs for gun safety laws in this country. But you refuse to lead. Parents and grandparents, you cannot vote for hypocrites like this. Vote for people who value your kids, America’s kids.
76
The answer is not guns. It is votes. What everyone in America needs to understand is this will not change until everyone, and I mean everyone, who is appalled by all the gun violence gets out of their chair, registers to vote, and heads to the polling place and pulls the lever for candidates who promise to outlaw assault weapons, limit gun ownership to those over 21 who have been vetted and trained, require complete background checks on all who wish to purchase guns, demand a waiting period before taking possession of a firearm, and make gun owners responsible, legally, for who has access to their weapons, including their own children. Every minute of every day your "rights" are limited to save lives. So spare me the "don't tread on my rights" lament. The congress and gun owners and lobby groups have done nothing to stop the carnage. When we reach a point in America where more innocent children are killed in one year at school by gun violence than all the military personnel in all the war zones across the world, it's time to tell the NRA and gun owners: "Sorry. Times up. You had your chance to fix this and we are not willing to listen to your hollow solutions any more". And to Ryan and McConnell we say: "You are in the way." And when you leave the polling place after casting your vote for the life of school children, walk out into the day light and raise your arms and cheer. If enough people do that, Trump and Republicans will get the message! Loud and Clear!
27
"Please, Let’s Never Get Used to This." It's too late. US citizens are used to this.
6
"Early this month Trump embraced the NRA, telling its annual meeting in Dallas, “Your Second Amendment rights are under siege. But they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your president.”
Does that tell you anything, America?
17
Ok, NYTimes, let's see if this is deemed publishable / post-worthy.
I had a new, horrifying thought today. This part isn't new -- it's been evident forever: the NRA -- and all elected officials who are in bed with them -- has/have zero interest in reducing school shootings and deaths whatsoever.
(If they had, Sandy Hook would have been the turning point.)
No, I feel they are entirely comfortable with the carnage going on. But why? (one asks, in light of it being so ... cruel.)
This is the new, horrifying idea that came to my mind today.
Because:
a) parents become ever more terrified / reluctant to send their kids to public schools
b) public school systems, already in trouble everywhere, start to collapse and ultimately in tatters, shutter, leaving only:
b1) Betsy DeVos' and others' beloved private / charter / religious schools
or
b2) home-schooling.
When charter, etc. and home schooling really takes root, we'll know we've come full circle ... fully back to the 1800s.
Then we can all be armed to the teeth at home, and girls and women can re-learn the 'gentle arts' and stay in their place.
Honestly. This insanity must stop. We must stop the NRA, the men who love it so -- and we must get to boys, and successfully intervene, before they shoot.
19
Spot on.
I really don’t know what it will take to get the republicans in congress to change its tune. THEY were shot at, while playing baseball. One of their own was badly injured. And STILL they do nothing. What will it take?
9
"What will it take?"
Americans overwhelmingly refusing to vote for any candidate who accepts donations from the NRA.
We need to make such acceptance the kiss of death.
You know who I am thoroughly sick of hearing about?
Law-Abiding Gun Owners, that’s who.
I am tired of having to buy them all a cookie every time somebody shoots up a school or a church or a restaurant.
I’m tired of taking them into consideration.
I have no more room for their feelings, or their phony innocence.
There are no more seats left on my Consideration Bus.
There are too many coffins on board these days.
30
It's already too late. This country has totally lost it with regard to gun control priorities. This won't even be in the news in a week. No change to current gun policy will even be proposed.
It's only been 3 months since Parkland. ONLY THREE MONTHS.
This is as big as the Columbine incident. We all remember that one. In 10 years we won't remember any of them except Sandy Hook. There are just too many.
How can anyone look at tragedies like this, all the harm guns do and such little good, and then say it's not the guns - it's beyond me. You're from another planet.
9
Let’s never get used to this?
Too late.
1
I don't think any reasonable person will get used to this type of news. It is a type of news that gun supporters hate to see, and they are the ones who are going to have to get used to it.
1
I feel like I have written this a million times over. All of the reporting on this is sterile and won't move the folks in the middle to do something.
I am an ex-military surgeon. I have spent years dealing with sequela of gun violence. It is horrific and leaves me with nightmares years after having dealt with both the immediate and delayed consequences of treating gun victims.
Start showing the pictures of the people who were injured and killed. Show the pictures of the victims where they lie after the incident. Show the pictures of them on the autopsy tables. Show the pictures of the wounded as they try to recover from their injuries.
Think about it. In WW II the press wasn't allowed to show dead soldiers for fear that, despite the existential threat of Hitler and Tojo, Americans might not support further fighting.
I challenge La Pierre, the NRA and their poodles, the Republicans, to defend the second Amendment when pictures of children missing their faces, or eviscerated by a gun start showing up on front pages.
Absent this, continued obscene gun violence will continue.
29
Great comment, but really, "poodles"? Arguably, the most intelligent breed of dog.
3
Who gives the NRA all their money? They cannot possibly have all that money from membership.
Let's go after the gun manufacturers in America. We are getting nowhere with the NRA. Go after their biggest source of funding, gun manufacturers.
5
Don't forget Russian oligarchs funding the NRA...
1
Putin and his gang are big NRA contributors. The NRA advances their interests.
1
Talking about it is useless unless we use our vote to defeat elected officials and candidates who enjoy A ratings from the NRA. Then we can have a conversation.
5
Thank You Gail. Perfectly said.
2
It all goes back to being afraid of your own shadow! When we as humans realize that a gun or an atomic bomb or any other form of extermination is an excuse to fulfill our pleasure then we will move forward to an enlightenment of understanding and will give away the minor stuff, however we have a long way to go! My condolences to the families that are suffering now!
1
Want to know where the cries of "fake news" come from ?
From article slike this, where the author just repeats someone elses statement without doing the homework first.
This statement :
“A guy walked into a school and stabbed more than 20 kids,” Kelly recalled. “Horrible. But do you know how many kids died? Zero.”
is a lie.
Which is to say, intentionally deceptive rather than simply incorrect.
In that attack, nine students were killed and ninteen were wounded.
Which leads me to the more important point.
It's not about guns.
It's about guns in that hands of nut cases.
And who, and how, do we decide who is a nut case ?
Good question.
1
Before you accuse someone of spreading false information, please read more carefully. Kelly was speaking of a school attack that occurred at around the same time as the Sandy Hook shooting. 22 children and one adult were wounded with no fatalities. The attack you are thinking of occurred just last month. Jelly did have his facts correct, and Collins is reporting the truth.
1
Unfortunately you have your facts wrong, the school stabbing in question occurred in December of 2012, 23 pupils were stabbed and all of them survived. Let’s not kid ourselves, guns and knives can be used as a deadly weapon. Knives are tools abused for killing, guns are tools designed to kill. And lastly it’s much more likely and easier to kill scores with one gun than with one knife.
1
In what way does this prove your point? I challenge your version of the facts, but in any event, knives are not the problem in the U.S. School kids (and many, many others) are getting dead — dead — because of guns. We do not have a knife problem in this country; we have a GUN problem. And it’s long past time our national leaders did something about it. So I say, let’s elect leaders who will.
1
Time to stop talking and start voting for representatives who will enact sensible gun laws. There are lots of great proposals that would enhance the security of the population and protect it from the scourge of random gun violence while maintaining the people’s “right to bear arms.” It just takes a change of leadership in Congress and a change in the majority of representatives. VOTE for those who get F ratings from the NRA!!
3
I am stil waiting for someone to examine and write a critical article about the culture of the ethnic white population that creates so many disaffected people with so much of murderous intent towards their fellows. Young, old, rich, poor - it cuts across social and economic class of the caucasian population.
Its getting bad to worse. Las vegas 58 killed,700 injured - shot by a rich white guy - we still dont know what his motivation was for such a monstrous crime.
Gun control is only part of the story. Culture is where the root cause is. America need to figure this out before its too late. Guns. Opioids. Race bigotry. No interest in education. Social dysfunction. List is long.
4
This was Texas, where one would think there are more "good guys with a gun" than any other place in the US. And they didn't stop it. Proving he NRA is wrong--and we will DEFEAT IT!
6
Gun owners alert: protect the second amendment! First, ban assault weapons, limit muzzle velocity, close the gun show loop hole, restore and fund research on gun violence, repeal the liability protection for gun manufacturers, only vote for candidates who refuse money from gun interests from either side, require coded ammunition, fund development of owner-only trigger mechanisms, require gun licenses like automobiles, require insurance for all gun owners...
If you do these things, the second amendment will be protected from those crazy snowflakes!
3
The rest of the world looks at us in shock and disbelief. Must EACH of us lose a loved one before the gun lobby is finally STOPPED?
3
Ms. Collins, you are correct to imply that the issue is simple. And it is clear, it is never about guns. It is always simply about the decision by an individual to harm. Money does not create thieves, words do not create liars and cars, bombs and guns do not create killers. It is an individuals character flaw and a lack of proper moral understanding that causes them to steal, or lie, or drive a car into a crowd, to strap on a suicide vest, or to shoot someone. That person makes a decision to do harm to others.
3
Oh, another one. I saw the breaking news on a TV screen in the gym this morning. But, I didn't check any news source for hours after I got home. Now, school shootings are as commonplace as car chases in L.A. What will be done now? Nothing...
Maybe it's time to repeal the 2nd.
7
Not repeal it, but counter the NRA's unforgivable reinterpretation of the Second Amendment's intent, which was to reassure states of their continued sovereignty following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
How many people saw and heard Con-man Trump's "lifeless" statement about this rural Texas school shooting read from a monitor in Wash., DC -- shortly after the news broke?
Had he been talking to the NRA, his statement would have had convincing animation and sincere belief in "God bless the NRA."
9
Children are learning a cruel but valuable lesson: adults don't really care about them.
Pray that your children care more when they choose a nursing home for you.
4
When will it ever end?
Can we adopt Japan's gun policy and have
10 gun induced deaths a year instead of one gun death every 15 minutes?
Can we prosecute the NRA for dishonesty and treachery in utilizing foreign Russian money and funneling it to the corrupt and amoral Trump campaign?
Please allow law suits against callous gun manufacturers!
When will it ever end?
Please vote the cynical and pusillanimous Republican Party our of office forthwith!
They are not pro life at all!
7
It is being reported that this year more people have been killed while attending school here in America than have been killed in the military. Of course the NRA folks would say that this is because currently the schools are soft targets, while our military are armed and dangerous. More thoughts and prayers needed, I guess. Be Best?
2
Emotional Immaturity Access to Guns = Bad Things Happen.
If guns don’t kill people, then we should send soldiers to battle spaces with only hand to hand combat skills? They obviously don’t need guns to kill if they are well regulated.
Stop fooling ourselves. Too many Americans are emotionally immature and too mentally sloppy to handle guns.
Jeesh....tighten the access people and re-create the regular militia to train and self police ownership.
Otherwise, sounds like denial on the part of gun owners. NRA members, heal your positions, otherwise history will treat you poorly.
A gun owner for the NYS SAFE Act for all.
4
250 million guns and a population of 300 million. What do you expect.
5
With sincere apologies, the time has come to relearn the lesson that Emmet Till's mother taught us by insisting on a photograph of open coffin containing the dead body of her son after he was lynched in the 1950's. The photo of that had a major impact in ending lynching. A grieving parent who permitted the publication of a dead child would do more good than a million words of hand wringing. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
10
There have to be peaceful demonstrations all over country to press Congress to enact gun control laws
2
Those who are paid to protect the gun merchants, the legislators of this country, are protected by metal detectors, security personnel and so on from the sort of mayhem unleashed by mad gunmen on school kids and other innocent victims. No wonder all they offer after these routine massacres are "thoughts and prayers" and no preventive actions.
3
Whenever people, especially school kids, are gunned down, this action should never, ever, be referenced or viewed as being "way too normal". Perhaps the shock value has diminished greatly but I am haunted by how the children and the parents of children who were murdered, wounded or survived a shooting tragedy are grieving, feeling, coping & trying to understand what happened.
I keep thinking that perhaps down the road, answers and actions to stop and prevent future shooting massacres will come from the children who survived these shootings. Perhaps they will form coalitions, grassroots marches and protests, run for office and introduce meaningful gun control legislation. They know first hand of the personal experience and exposure, the fear and pain. Sometimes its these kinds of emotions and permanent memories that will help drive an idea into a reform that will lead to concrete and permanent action.
I have no faith in today's leaders, especially a president who lies more often than keeps his word. But I do have complete faith in the younger generation. I am hoping their pain, grief, loss and fear will be transformed into a positive and a driving force in changing the conversation and mindset that presently exists in our government. These kids are my hope and the potential beacon of light this country desperately needs, now more than ever.
8
Regrettably this is who we are (or have become) as a nation. It's part of our persona and our national identity. We may very well be the freest county on earth, but our freedom casts a wide net. Many view our great freedoms will come at a cost, not defending our country from foreign invaders but from ourselves. Too many forces work against common sense. Clearly our body politic is impotent at addressing the easy access to guns and finds every scapegoat possible to deflect the focus away from the real cause. I fear we do not have the where with all to correct it with any near term solution. Get used to it America, sadly it's here to stay.
2
Curt living in fear is not freedom. And in general US "freedom" just like social mobility is a scam and a fiction. Get real.
Guns are the problem, and the refusal by Republican politicians to acknowledge the obvious truth staring us in the face is astounding.
One wonders if there is any historical precedent for a ruling class in any country, in any century, avoiding a direct confrontation with an ongoing crisis.
We should salute the people who keep trying year after year to get meaningful gun control legislation passed, but maybe there is a new approach.
Why don’t we agree with the Republicans that guns are not the primary problem?
The primary problem, which overshadows everything in these tragedies, is the Republicans who find it morally acceptable to divert attention away from the role of guns.
The problem is the refusal by Republican senators and representatives to say – just say – that the easy access to guns in America is the problem.
5
When Columbine happened I was shocked and horrified. As these mass school shootings have gone on, I have resigned myself to 'how many died this time?'. Will this carnage ever stop? The NRA used to advocate responsibility. Now they seem to support mass murder. The time has come where we need to restore sanity to our nation.
2
Thank you Gail for this laser sharp focus on guns. And the focus on guns unfolds into the deeper focus on money. Lots of it. In turn the focus on money sheds light on the money made from war games where thousands are killed, maimed, starved and displaced. Then the displaced are labeled as terrorists and "illegal aliens" who are then punished in a variety of life threatening ways. I am waiting for the day when the high school activists join with the teenagers whose lives have been shattered by the bombs that shatter their lands, their food supplies, their water and their lives. We have met the enemy and it is us.
4
School shootings are horrendous but they are not the only mass shootings that occur. Let's not forget the Las Vegas massacre that claimed 58 fatalities. 58! In just a few minutes of firepower provided by assault rifles equipped with bump stocks, 58 people lost their lives and over 200 were injured at this concert venue. What has been done?
Republicans in the grip of the NRA are the problem.
2
Do the majority of Americans realise that people all over the world are scared of them?
From the outside the increasingly militaristic USA creates wars all over the place (so far away from their shores) for profit not peace and this unbridled violence is replicated on their own doorstep as Americans kill Americans.
This inherent violence passes generation to generation. Its now uncontrollable because self-serving people in charge won't control the violence because they're profiteering gunrunners inside & outside their country.
Too harsh, not at all.
Communities must come up with effective solutions because the governments are failing from top to bottom - federal, state & local.
Where to start - perhaps a secular education which emphasises strong social values eg respect for each other, decency, ethics, caring for others not just the immediate family, putting oneself in others shoes, compassion, equality, fairness
Guns kill people. They're designed to kill. No other reason. People with guns kill people.
Back to the communities. You must help yourself because God & your government won't. Gods not around as American children & their teachers are slaughtered in their schools.
Heres a small start. Big bold signage stating 'No Guns Allowed in This Neighbourhood' ...it might be one or a few houses, then the street, then a few blocks, then the whole community spreading beyond that one community.
Americas government & lawmakers are failing. The only hope is grassroots.
4
Sorry, Ms. Collins, but gun violence is an epidemic in your country and one that is patently not being treated. Best get used to it.
2
It is stunning to consider what cowards inhabit Congress. They are afraid of guns comming anywhere near themselves and therefore ban them from their workplace. Just as they take care of themselves regarding health insurance and retirement.
"We the People” is an abstraction to them. There are no people, only votes.
Congress takes care of Congress.
11
Please stop televising these attacks. The media has the power. Since our federal and state governments are in the pockets of the nra and fear them. Do something, now. Our children and grandchildren are living in a nightmare.
2
"I don't have anything original left to say." That from senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who is truly one of the good guys in the crusade against gun violence. Well, I have something original to say.
Breaking the NRA's choke hold on Congress would be, I suspect, an astonishingly easy thing to do if we could just exercise a little creativity. And it would be amazingly cheap. Let's create a Go Fund Me account with $1 billion. Then make the following announcement: "Any member of Congress who votes in favor of sensible gun legislation and loses his/her next election will receive an award of $10 million for courageous public service."
Critics will claim it's a bribe. How so? How can it be a bribe when I have no idea ahead of time who might receive the award? But surely it's an illegal campaign contribution. How can that be when the recipient has already been voted out of office?
Imagine the horror felt by NRA nuts when they hear members of Congress bellow: "Go ahead, NRA, make my day! You may drive me out of office, but in so doing you'll be setting me and my family up for life."
Once sane gun legislation is passed and pro gun folks see that their world hasn't come to a cataclysmic end, I'm betting that the law will remain in force and the public will become comfortable with the change. And if the NRA is somehow successful in unseating enough congressmen to overturn the legislation, we'll just raise another $1 billion and do it again.
6
Guns were not allowed at the NRA convention when Trump and Pence spoke. They knew the best way to protect the lives of the President and Vice President was to disallow guns.
What hypocrites.
9
Why are guns more important than children? Because Congress is corrupt and lies. America has become an alien and much is due to Fox TV, a channel that promotes anger, hatred and violence. America has become more violent, angry, corrupt, the glorification of celebrities, where lies are taken as truth and the truth is called "fake news" and even the real media hasn't done enough - just look at the press leading up to the 2016 election. They love Trump because he's crazy and they love violence because it's news. Where's the in depth reporting about guns, gun manufacturers, gun shows, parents of these killers, etc. Yes, the media is starting to link the NRA money and Congress people but they need to do more. Russia is smiling but Europe is horrified. America needs new leadership and to get money out of its politics.
8
Obfuscate, distract, divert. It's the classic MO of the NRA et al. After Parkland they flushed Florida's students down the toilet by instigating debate of the arming of teachers. Most school districts are only just now getting around to hiring non-SRO security as a compromise -- the same sort of security staff that was just shot at Santa Fe.
No more distractions. No more tiptoeing. Do not yield an inch or get dragged into the weeds where so many red herrings thrive.
GUNS. ARE. THE. PROBLEM.
10
It seems a shame that so many children have had to die just to start a conversation. I have no idea what gun safety advocates, which the NRA is supposed to be about, have against background checks and banning assault weapons. Avoiding the discussion about gun safety laws sounds a little paranoid to me. Every time the government changes a speed limit, it doesn't mean the they're trying to take your cars away. But that's the problem, only one side is talking. The other side talks to this straw man who is always coming for their guns so they can never be trusted to be honest brokers. What do we have to do. What do we have to say. We're not coming for your stinking guns. We're trying to protect your children, stupid.
5
I am not sure who wrote; "humans have oversized adrenal glands and undersized frontal lobes". Until this simple biological fact is recognised, guns should only ever be in the hands of those who see gun ownership as a privilege rather a "RIGHT" and please correct me if I am mistaken living south of the equator, wasn't the amendment created so in the event of a tyrannical government being in power the people could remove them from office. Mr Trump and his cohorts seeing the bogeyman everywhere and are happy to make decisions especially regarding foreign policy which makes Americans more of a target what is that if not tyrannical. If this is America's new normal and the politicians who keep feeding at the public trough with backing from the gun manufacturers and the NRA stay there, sadly you have only yourselves to blame. You are still a democracy, for the people by the people. VOTE. At every level, the Gun Lobbyists and NRA will be handing out money right down the ticket, arming teachers and having armed guards is not the solution. Laws make people safer, not more guns
2
It is really, really incomprehensible from my European point of view how anno 2018 any intelligent person can defend that any citizen can bear weapons in the name of freedom. It makes me feel sick reading how all those NRA adepts rationalize a human and moral tragedy in whatever terms that deny the simple fact that weapons should no be free accesible. Not in a civilized country. Denying the destructive consequences of that free access, is the same as denying the negative impact of mankind on the climate. It must be that a lot of people earn a lot of money with this denial nonsense (I don't believe that they do not know better, they are nothing more than a bunch of liars, what makes it even worse), all at the cost of innocent lives lost. So despicable...
10
Sorry, too late for that. The country even elected a crook. So the country is probably used to even worse. Racism is now mainstream, social inequality has been mainstream forever, the opioid problem is finally main stream. So it’s probably too late
5
It doesn’t matter whether we get used to this or not because it’s going to continue to happen and it will keep happening even if more stringent gun laws are passed.
The reason for that of course is that there are 350+ million guns in circulation already which include 10 million AR 15’s. They sit in drawers, cabinets, closets and are even right out in the open. In addition the sales pipeline is never ending, so if restrictions are placed on background and age it really matters not. Where there is a will to get one there will be a way.
We have to have the same rules as England for ownership and we have to COLLECT the guns that are out there. Americans don’t have the desire or stomach for this so the carnage will go on.
BTW, the point of entry screening at schools only places a large crown to be gunned down at the point of entry instead of in the schools.
2
Our culture has changed. Kids being shot by kids in school was nearly unheard of in the 1970s or earlier. And now it's a siren song for troubled outcasts who dress up and grab a moment of fame and revenge. Notice where they go: movie theaters, schools, churches; all innocent gathering places with minimal security. It's not banks, airports, bus or train stations. Rand Paul got it right, they're not going into police stations, they've enough sense to know they'd be shot without any glory. In relatively short order we could harden the protections around our schools: armed guards, trained parent volunteers, whatever it takes, but gun control isn't a serious fast solution with these shootings unfolding every few months. And giving them a platform with their photographs in national media doesn't help. How about photos with a denigrating byline, 'cowardly suspect identified as....' no use of 'killer' 'troubled' 'outsider' and recounting their 'methodical' 'rampage' 'deadly' actions which is the image they seek and feed their cravings. Get rid of the glorification and fight back with shame and a wall of trained resistance, now. Anything else is political posturing.
1
A simple and meaningful solution is for all Republicans of good conscience to change their political registration as Republican to Democrat or Independent.
Do this and send a real message that enough is enough and do it before the elections in November of 2018.
What is more important - our children or the NRA and its enabler the wishey washey Trump.
Put the threat of your vote where your good sense and your heart happen to be.
3
Why aren’t the heads of the two large teachers unions, NEA and AFT, calling for their members to walk off the jobs until meaningful gun restrictions, with teeth, are put into law?
6
Good idea. I think a student general strike is in order along with teachers and staff. They are in danger from US society, from congress, from the president.
2
Gun reform will not work - until we have ATTITUDE reform in America. I don't live in Texas but I live next door. Same people same attitudes. After Parkland, these people who have children and grandchildren in school did what? Double down. They took concealed carry classes, bought AR-15's, joined or reaffirmed with the NRA. An 88 year old man I know carries his "pocket protector" with him everywhere - even in Walmart. Hunting and guns are a main hobby to these people. It's Cabela's for Christmas. Decent people otherwise, many ex-cops but they ALL CLING TO THEIR GUNS. Born and raised here I used to like guns too. Still own a couple, never shoot them anymore, hate the sight of 'em, only keep them for home defense since one night when I ran off a guy hiding from police in my front yard. Fear. Culture. Attitudes. How many have to die, is it even possible, to reverse this crazy, self sustaining cycle we are trapped in?
4
It’s very difficult to put the finger on why this is happening now. Oh, I’m sure, there are hundreds if not thousands of opinions on why and how to stop it. Will it stop? Unfortunately, this isn’t going to stop as long as we live in a gun culture. It’s true that human nature is grounded in violence. We came from the animal kingdom. Sorry Creationists. Animals are usually aggressive just by their DNA. The difference is that as humans, we can actually decide NOT to kill another human being.
If we took away all the guns and knives, unstable souls will start to use sticks and stones to fight and hurt people. One thing that wouldn’t be happening is MASS MURDER!!!
2
Too late, we’re too used to it and especially sick of all of the false promises from our politicians.
Nothing will change until we vote the Trumpholes out.
7
People die every year from knives used as a weapon: four times the rate of assault rifles...so your example to prove no deaths will happen when using a knife is lame.
2
Seven times more murders are committed with firearms than with cutting instruments. You are comparing every kind of knife with a small subset of firearms. Also, knife attacks lead much less often to death than firearm attacks.
1
It is simply not true that four times more pepole die from knife wounds every year than from assault rifles.
1
Unless and until you provide a respectable source for your claim, you lack any credibility whatsoever.
1
I told my husband tonight, "I find it hard to work on these school shooting days," and then I realized what I'd said. Like it's bad weather. This is terrible.
3
The moment anyone has a gun in their hands, they immediately pose a threat to themselves and to others.
3
Generations of Americans have been brainwashed into believing that guns are a vital and vibrant part of America’s identity, of America’s culture. You revere gun-toting heroes, you kowtow to the NRA, you extol guns and violence in your films and you reference ad nauseum one particular article of your Constitution when, if asked, most would be incapable of citing any other. We are no longer shocked by your failure to address your problem and the multitude of weak and ridiculous excuses for maintaining a well stocked arsenal of privately owned killing machines. I will always grieve for any parent, anywhere in the world, who loses a child to this type of unnecessary violence but I can no longer grieve for America when there is such wide spread willful complacency.
4
Hard to say this, but: too late. And if we're pretty used to, the rest of the world has come to expect it. Both the horrific incidents themselves, and our faux handwringing response.
3
Every one of the many thousands of heart-felt comments should be legislated as 'required reading' for US legislators, who appear comatose to the voices of your nation. It's long gone beyond tragic, to criminal irresponsibility for those in power. The world looks on and wonders if all that's left is the epitaph, 'look what became of the wild wild west.'
4
Do as I say, not as I do? There’s more in the NY Times about the wedding of these not born equal royals than the shooting.
3
Gun lovers and the NRA can defend the right to own guns all they want, and we get it, they love their guns more than human life but for them to say nothing can be done to prevent these things is false.
Or, as "The Onion" posts after each one of these terrible events, "'No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"
4
The GOP and the NRA want to convince us that their guns and gun culture are not the problem, and need not change.
2
America is a tragedy. Children being slaughtered on a monthly basis while they attend school is never addressed in any meaningful way in this country, while a majority of Americans favor stricter gun control. This just never happens anywhere else in the world with any regularity. America is sick. Our democracy is completely broken. Until laws are written that forbid the influence of money in politics, nothing will ever change. But when will that ever happen? America has become too ugly a place to live for any sane person. Time to leave for one of the other countries in the world that restrict the influence of money in politics and have true democracies. No true democracy anywhere in the world would allow the monthly slaughter of children attending school. Only in dying, sick America.
5
The United States is in the thick of a virulent epidemic of terminal stupidity.
'The solution is more good guys with guns.'
'It's not about guns, it's about mental illness.'
'It's about violence in movies. Video games.'
Listen up, stupid... every nation has it's share of crazy people. Angry people. Violent movies and video games. Yet somehow, some way, the nations that have strict regulation of guns, and far fewer guns per capita than the U.S., have far fewer serious injuries and deaths as a result of gunfire and all other types of weaponry combined.
Crazy people and angry people with guns can do a lot of damage in an instant. When they act on impulse with a gun nearby, they easily maim and kill. It's not at all easy to kill with your bare hands, or to stare your victim in the eye and attack with a knife or a bludgeon.
It's that simple.
Thoughts and prayers won't do it. It will take the overwhelming majority of Americans, who want nothing to do with guns, to hike up their socks and start telling the other folks who are wedded to their firearms to go jump in a lake.
That's it. If we lack the courage to deal with it, we're doomed to live this way. My fond hope is that the next generation, or the generation after that, will rise up and repeal the Second Amendment. Otherwise, we will stand by hopelessly and helplessly, year after year, with tens of thousands of human sacrifices to that 'strictly construed,' anachronistic Amendment every year - 'normal life' in America.
3
Gail, the N.R.A. and its sycophants in Congress want us "to get used to this". Its existence and their livelihoods depend upon the public's exhaustion and loss of outrage over these recurring acts of slaughter. They embrace the banality of this evil.
One of the salient qualities of human beings is our capacity to adapt, to survive under conditions which we think should destroy us, physically or emotionally. That ability helps explain, for example, the endurance of slaves, death camp inmates and those who suffer other forms of devastating traumas. Our resiliency in the face of disaster serves as a significant evolutionary advantage in our specie's struggle for survival.
That adaptability, however, exacts a price. Confronted by a developing pattern of mass shootings, we may well adjust our expectations, as we do in the case of thousands of yearly deaths from automobile-related causes. At some point, we will adopt ameliorative policies, such as converting schools into high-security zones with limited entrances and exits, patrolled by heavily armed security personnel and guarded by metal detectors. The fact that measures of this kind will transform academic institutions into environments marked by high anxiety and lack of spontaneity will strike us as an acceptable price to pay for the safety of our children.
If, by contrast, we refused to adapt to these outrages, condemning them as a threat to a free society, we just might mobilize to tackle the gun problem that lies behind the carnage, as other democracies have done. Adaptability may help our species to survive, but, as in the case of the frog who failed to respond to the gradually heating water, our passivity could prove fatal to our way of life.
4
A nation with as many guns as the rest of the world, whose schoolchildren are gunned down in numbers equal to the military in foreign conflict, whose solution is to remedy the carnage with more guns to control the guns that kill...deserves to die a death of suicide. Probably by a dystopian blast to the head, putting it out of its misery for valuing an object of destruction and mordant second amendment love more than life itself.
4
We are a joke of a country. We epitomize hypocrisy. Let freedom ring indeed. American exceptionalism. City on a hill. That's all over now. The GOP regime will do nothing. The rest of the civilized world is recoiling from us in disgust. Every furrowed-brow earnest thing being said about this today is a deja vu endless loop 8-track tape cliche. Our current iteration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a perverse atrocity.
7
The Chinese example is really relevant. During the 1960's and 1970's, I was twice threatened by people brandishing knives. Both times, I did not wait to find out what they wanted. I simply fled, as fast as I could. If either of those people had had guns, I would probably be dead. I was a fast runner, but I could never have outrun a bullet.
5
This will be the shortest news coverage of any of these horrendous shootings. Cable news didn't even bother tagging it with their musical accompaniment. After all, it can't infringe on the coverage of The Wedding.
2
The problem is not too many guns. It's too many politicians who take money from the gun lobby.
2
America is dysfunctional in many ways and this is one of them. There is something wrong in the culture that is producing copy cat school shooters. There is something dysfunctional with a political structure that is unable to address this slaughter of children. Most people feel helpless to address this dysfunction and that makes it worse. It is past time to figure this out and act on it.
3
This is an epidemic and needs to be treated like one. If everyone cooperated to a degree we could at the very least put the cancer in remission. Instead we get Congress trying not to confront the NRA for fear pf losing donations from them. And the NRA won't deal with the reality. They are in denial that these school shooting are part and parcel of their policies. Then we have Trump who comes up with unrealistic solutions, and gives lip service to the victims. His words are always empty. Aside from the obvious reasons such as easy access to weapons, what is endemic to these violent, antisocial male teens. Is it the violence on the net, in video games and in movies and on tv that causes them to kill. Are they desensitized to violence. Media overkill. Are the parents not able to see that they need help. This is a cancer that is pandemic. Laws such as background checks, holding parents accountable. And trying to set up an early warning system for the potentially dangerous ones. Can society's values be improved. There's too much division, polarization, and even mind control by Facebook, Twitter, Fox News, etc. Something out of tilt here and we need to address it Maybe Trump needs to change his slogan, "Make America Great Again" to one that is a sign of the times today that he is responsible for, "Make America Hate Again."
1
Folks, stop worrying about dying. If you give up that care then you won't feel compelled to protect against it. Bye-bye need for all those household arsenals. If everyone became laissez faire about being killed there'd be no reason to kill. So someone shoots another who doesn't care. Pfft, the power dynamic shifts. The thrill of the kill will, ahem, die.
This is as plausible as all the ridiculous workarounds proffered by gun enthusiasts.
1
Gail, thanks for being so courageous and able, in spite of this never ending insanity, to carry on with the imortance of never giving up. we all need to hear that as the insanity and its carnage never stop. today, when my laptop flashed with the n news of the Texas killing, my heart sunk, and my mind went in to a depressive mode which feels precisely where I'd like to stay. and when a text message from mark Kelly and gabby came through , saying " it doesn't have to be that way"... I felt I was about to give up. just ignore it all, arrange my life in such a way as not too be at the least vulnerable. giving up has been dominating my head for the rest of the day an d into the evening. then your article came and did what only you can do : lift our spirits. but gail, all kidding aside, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ?! use the voting booth as we've been told many times ?! I lost my trust in ALL politicians to do the right, SANE thing and enact the measures deemed to prevent the endless killing. I see no hope. it seems ours is such a system which actually PROMOTES such insanity while maintain the political / legislative safe guards for the politicians. and I'm not even going to mention the NRA money poured into politicians' coffers. please, suggest SOMETHING.
1
"The problem is guns, not knives or too many school doors."
Actually the problem is money in politics.
2
A 17 yr old with an older hand gun and a shot gun was able to kill 10 people and wound 10 others. How high would the body count have been had he had an AR-15 and unlimited ammo. There was a resource officer (retired police officer) on campus whom the shooter shot, and he's in critical condition, fighting for his life.
The teacher who died today was a substitute: she was retired, mother of three, grandmother to eight, wife to a man who was stricken with cancer thus requiring her to return to work because of medical bills.
All of this is so, so bloody wrong.
15
Only gun owners can stop this. They have to be the agents of charge, it will never happen if only gun control advocates work on new laws and regulations. If you own a gun then you are part of the problem, you have an obligation to fix it.
510
I understand your point, JFR, but I am afraid it would take more than gun owners to stop the madness.
There is no reason in the world for people to own assault weapons and machine guns or guns that can fire multiple shots without reloading.
The gun lobby and the Congress and state legislatures who cater to them are clearly the culprits.
We the people must stand up and say in unison, "ENOUGH!" and vote the bums out. Until then, the carnage, sadly, will continue, with elementary school and middle school and high school kids, among others, becoming "collateral damage" of the gun lobby and the NRA.
57
No, gun owners would NEVER lift a finger to stop this. Only a functioning federal government truly determined to protect and improve the country can stop this. That means we’re pretty much cooked.
47
@JFR, I completely agree that gun owners need to be part of the solution. I don't however, agree that only gun owners can stop this. It would take more than responsible gun owners to stop this. It would take principled legislators, a dying breed unfortunately.
Nor do I believe, as the owner of several handguns, that I am part of the problem. My guns are registered, though they do not need to be. They are secured and unloaded unless I am at the shooting range. When I entertain they are locked away in a secondary secure location. I've taken over 40 hours of safety training and instruction in the past 3 years. I walked away from the NRA years ago, and remember a time, the 1970s when I was active in Scouting, when they were all about safety and training.
@Ken Nyt, clearly you do not know any gun owners, certainly not responsible ones. As a gun owner who regularly writes my legislators voicing my opinion that stronger protections are needed, I cannot agree with your statement. I would ask however, how many times have you contacted your representatives on this issue? When gun control advocates, and I am one, make statements like yours you lose any chance to engage in a meaningful conversation,
30
I hear comments about the NRA like if the NRA were an isolated entity working for the gun manufacturers. The NRA is a lobbying organization for citizens who want to protect their right to bear arms. Going against the NRA is going against all its members who pay membership fees to get the NRA to work for them. So changes to the NRA position on guns must start by changing the minds of its members. Your questions should be addressed not to the NRA executives but to the NRA members.
1
one additional comment. the news media needs to repeatedly play the performance of trump testifying before the nra as their supreme supporter over and over again. non-stop. until it seeps so deeply into the consciousness of the usa and the world that it can no longer be ignored. why are the forces against gun control so weak and unorganized. certainly there's enough money and power against those who would continue to support this lunacy to affect a change. please.
6
Gail, sadly I am use to mass shootings. It’s only May and 2018 is turning out to be an especially bloody year. The shootings seem to be coming more frequently. When will the GOP come to their senses and reverse our sick gun culture? How many more will have to be killed?
Ironically, the handling of this particular shooting in the media completely validates most of the NRA's claims. These poor kids were murdered with a pump action shotgun and a six-shooter -- just the types of weapons explicitly endorsed for home defense purposes by Joe Biden just a few years ago. And yet the media and the commenters here are demanding gun control solutions. Admit it, it was never about "assault weapons", bump stocks, or "high-capacity" magazines. Those proposals are just stepping stones to a complete elimination of civilian firearm ownership. You ask why the NRA and the millions of Americans the organization represents refuse to cooperate with your gun control efforts? It is now obvious that to give you an inch is to lose a mile.
So let’s do away with all laws because someone will break them anyway sometime. Banning assault weapons, bump stocks and high capacity magazines would have prevented most of the recent mass shootings, and requiring that owners of the other types of firearms lock them away safely when not carried, would have prevented the latest school shooting. But Republicans opposed even that last sensible regulation.... Why not take the NRA stance to its logical extreme and require that gun manufacturers provide their products for free, so as to not infringe the second amendment rights of those citizens who cannot afford to pay for a gun?
1
If this were happening in any other country, world governments would be issuing travel alerts abut the dangers of visiting and living in the US due to gun volence. Such alerts cripple tourism and the accompanying economies. Gun killings, never mind mass shootings in the US should be enough to trigger those. Perhaps adverse economic consequences are the only way to speak to certain US hearts.
2
Amen, Gail Collins.
We, however, do need to get used to the abject failure of the mainstream news media, nearly all office-holding politicians and the mainstream "gun control" lobby to ever organize with even one quarter of the efficiency of the NRA. They have failed America miserably and inexcusably for decades on this.
And we need to do much, much more than just talk about this problem.
New grassroots organizations, like those inspired by the Parkland students, are needed to focus unrelenting attention on:
1) the names, ranks and serial numbers of every member of Congress taking NRA funds, every member of Congress ever voting for a bill supported by the NRA or voting against a bill opposed by the NRA
2) the names and locations of every organization supporting or subsidizing the NRA in any way,
and to rigorously organize, in every city and hamlet in America, to defund, boycott, protest and vote every one of them out of power and put them all out of business, until they utterly cease and desist backing or tolerating this mass murder lobby and its deluded or amoral supporters.
This goes beyond Trump, beyond the two party system, beyond conventional politics. It's a matter of common sense versus mass foolishness and cowardice, and about finally doing something to rid the country of this terrible national, international and moral shame. Any American waffling on this is part of the problem, and until now that has included most of the vast majority who are not gun nuts.
2
The rational people wield in supporting loose gun laws reminds me of the same delusional rational I've read from people in Antebellum America defending slavery. The similarities in the chasm that divides the intellectual and emotional understanding of the issue is truly remarkable. To hear how people defend gun ownership as they talk about arming teachers , sounds like Martian to me. Our realities exist on two separate planes. If it took a war to end slavery, I fear what it will take to dismantle and delegitimize the cult of gun ownership. Those that fetishize the 2nd amendment seem to see the world in such a completely different way than me. How do you keep rationalizing away school shootings? You believe in god and guns .
2
Texas is the last place in the US where sane, responsible gun safety laws will ever be put in place. And, yes, it is time to call out those people who consistently vote in that state as well as other states for the Republicans and NRA Democrats who are failing to keep the children of the US safe in their schools.
Say the names of those elected officials in Texas responsible for voting to protect the NRA and gun manufacturers instead of children at every child's funeral. Ask those in attendance who they voted for in the last election. Those are the people who need the "moments of silence" and the "thoughts and prayers" to change. Hold these men and women responsible for the deaths.
No wonder our country has given up space exploration; the country that sent men to walk on the moon is unable to vote for policies to stop a 17 year old boy with a shotgun and pistol from killing 10 of his classmates and injuring others or to stop other young men from using even more powerful weapons to kill and injure more students and staff in their schools. We as a country have become too dysfunctional to keep our children from killing each other with guns in their schools.
Fewer men and women in dangerous combat zones across the world in US military service have died in 2018 than school children killed in mass murders in schools. How can any of us get used to it being more dangerous to go to school than to fight the battles of the US?
Vote against all Republicans and NRA Democrats.
1
The trouble is, our national legislators work for the NRA, not for the good of the country. Citizens United has permanently altered our democracy and made it much worse.
1
people with guns kill other people. if they don't have a gun, at least we've eliminated one way in which they can kill other people. how hard is that to understand. just after the incident we saw an image of a man walking with an american flag and a gun strapped to his belt saying to the camera, "make america great again." what could he possibly mean. we simply must find a way to take the guns away from these incredibly challenged human beings, once and for all.
2
Sorry. It's too late. We've already gotten used to this -- But worst than that, we've grown immune.
Nothing seems to happen to wake this president, this Congress, this society to the fact that something is very wrong here.
Let's face it. When innocent Americans of all ages, all races, all religions are repeatedly gunned down for no reason at all, there's something wrong.
And there's no getting around the fact that easy access to fire arms is the key to the problem -- that, and those who think their 2nd Amendment rights include the right to kill other human beings.
We didn't get it with Sandy Hook, or with any of the other mass shootings.
We didn't get it when several church members were shot dead in the middle of prayer.
We didn't even get it when several members of Congress were shot and wounded on a baseball field.
And now this.
It's too late. We've already gotten used to this.
301
An adjacent editorial in this paper diagrams the legislative efforts to quell gun violence from 2012 to present. The Obama years offered no improvements, and the past year has seen one modest passage of gun control law. While we both agree that the status quo is inadequate, your apportionment of frustration should extend to our former president, and to representatives of both parties whose lack of compromise has effectively weapnised the issue beyond its tangible lethality.
2
I reject your despair because it ensures that nothing will change.
11
Are you kidding? Obama wanted to pass gun legislation but the Republican congress wouldn't have it.
Here we go again. Tonight on our national news, the Royal Wedding took up the first 20 minutes (and it hasn't even started yet) and then the Texas school shooting came next. What does this say about the rest of the world in relation to what happens in the US? We are getting 'used' to these events. We are sick of the gun laws in the US. More arms does not equal more safety. Reform your gun laws NOW, or the rest of the world will not and can not keep sympathising with a country that will not stop these senseless killings. The platitudes are not working. Try something different, America.
355
Not that I really care what Australia or the rest of the world thinks about the U.S., but with some 300,000,000 firearms and untold GAZILLIONS of rounds of live ammunition already “in circulation” here, what PRACTICAL steps do you propose for us Yanks?
Oh, and don’t forget to factor in our Second Amendment, which will be virtually impossible to repeal.
Thanks for any REALISTIC suggestions that you can offer.
5
The real problem is the persistent sub-text of the so-called debate over regulations regarding weapons and weapons owners. That sub-text makes the case that the government cannot protect you from people who will use weapons to kill others, the government is prohibited from doing so. In that environment you have but one choice – defend yourself by arming yourself. This was never the argument that I heard while growing up. Why is the argument different today?
30% of Americans keep and bear arms according to statistical surveys. There are sufficient weapons in circulation to arm everyone in the USA so that 30% probably has a personal arsenal that is formidable. The NRA only represents two percent of Americans through membership. So, where is the continuing market for the weapons manufacturers? You and me and the rest of the 70% of Americans who do not currently don’t have or want weapons. Without us, the weapons manufactures are restricted to sales to governments and people, in the opinion of most of us, who should not have deadly force at their disposal.
As part of the argument we now blame the schools for not being sufficiently “hardened” even the locked doors aren’t enough, according to the argument. The only path is for a fully armed society where disputes are settled by force of arms.
Is that the society that We-the-People really want? Or is that the society that the arms manufacturers want?
4
From an european point of view the US seems already used to mass shootings (including the subsequent rites). The first thing I read about a surviving student was that he told the interviewer that "our guns should not be banned". Maybe I´m too far away in Germany to understand the underlying mindset.
3
As I watched the survivors at Sante Fe High being interviewed I thought of the latest trend by the right to paint people that speak up as paid agitators. I've never known so many people leaving our country to live in another as I do now. One family made the decision to leave after the Parkand shooting. Fleeing might be a more apt word. The Republican viewpoint on guns, healthcare, education and work is making America a difficult place to live for too many.
5
A 17 year old used his father's guns to commit mass murder.
We must prevent children from having access to guns.
One of the most unfortunate aspects of the Heller / McDonald Court decisions was their striking down requirements that guns in the home be stored securely.
While it is politically impossible to entirely repeal all of Heller / McDonald it should be possible for the Court to change this lethal policy on storage of guns.
However consistent with Heller / McDonald we can pass legislation that makes a gun owner responsible for crimes committed with his guns.
Change existing laws so that if someone uses a gun and kills then the gun owner should be charged for MURDER.
Too harsh?
Consider this massacre as well as Sandy Hook [26 dead] and numerous other instances where a child picked up an unattended gun and killed.
REquiring safe storage of guns will reduce the chances of these massacres.
People ask how do we enforce this safe storage requirement.
We try to reduce drunk driving not by preventing people from drinking but by having criminal consequences if you are involving in an "accident" and you are drunk.
Same idea about safe storage of guns.
8
I distinctly remember the first time I ever saw news coverage like this. Oddly enough, Monday will mark the twentieth anniversary of that event – the shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, which took the lives of four people and left 25 seriously injured.
I was 11 years old, home sick with the flu, parked on a couch less than 50 miles from the carnage. It was breaking news both locally and nationally, and preempted everything on TV that morning. Without an adult present to intervene, I sat there paralyzed with shock, taking in every moment of the horror and chaos as it unfolded in real time. That was a year before the Columbine massacre, mind you. In 1998, no one was "used to it" – no one had any frame of reference for "it" at all.
It's strange to look back and realize I had a front row seat to one of the earliest instances of this national nightmare. It's stranger still to realize it's been twenty years. I'm 31 now, and I have yet to grow numb to the grief and shock. It probably should seem "normal" to me, given the givens. Growing up with school shootings is literally "a Millennial thing." But I refuse to retreat to weary resignation.
It's a solvable problem, and we have to treat it like one. I personally own a gun, and I fervently support federal legislation to restrict access and ownership. Any progress is a victory, here, and one thing is clear – the approach both sides have taken in the last two decades is not going to work.
3
Although guns are weapons, they have also been useful home tools for centuries, so to demonize the tools and not the criminals who use them only as weapons creates the kind of political impasse that Gail Collins and even the National Rife Association deplores. Foreign commenters urging us to scrap our 2nd Amendment only add to the polarization, not the isolation of the Amendment’s supporters who will oppose any effort to reduce our Bill of Rights. Most public schools do not have adequate armed security, and they ought to have protection from any armed criminals, gang associated or lone madman. And our youth need a cultural revolution that restores civic values, a respect for community neighbors, and patriotic virtues not often found in the opinion columns of the Times and other international newspapers.
As the the Times deplores Congressional resistance to its anti-2nd amendment proposals, real efforts to protect our students go wanting. Why not look at your editorial charts on when the largest number of mass shootings began, and go back in the decades to see our social life when we had none? When we had no mass shootings here in our public schools was when we had a different culture. We need to restore it.
A Trump supporter lecturing people about civic values? That’s rich! Don’t forget that Brett Stephens is in favor of scrapping the Second Amendment and it seems to me he’s definitely in favor of old fashioned civic values. Gun proponents always seem to forget the “well regulated militia” part of the second amendment; they just want to carry and use their guns wherever and whenever they want, without accountability, damn others, the consequences, and the lives of hundreds of children. The Second Amendment calls for a situation like in Switzerland, where every able bodied adult male is part of what we’d call here the National Guard, well-trained in responsible gun ownership and use. No mass shootings there. The Second Amendment doesn’t call for every nut case, criminal and terrorist to amass as many guns as he wants and leave them lying around in the house so kids and distraught teenagers can get ahold of them. But that’s exactly how the NRA wants to interpret it. Criminal!
1
Ms. Collins,
The problem with this country and our endless killings is a well-organized and well-financed group of gun enthusiasts who refuse to do anything that would infringe on their made-up rights.
The article below was written after the Newtown massacre and is an amazing account of how the NRA led a nearly 35 year quest to change the idea of the 2nd Amendment from the right of state militias to bear arms, to the right of individuals to own or carry a weapon. The 2nd Amendment has been changed and warped by the Right in this country, in our own lifetime. However, there is no reason it can’t swing back the other way?
The question of whether we can regulate guns is political as much as law.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-s...
7
The more broader issue is "how do we keep our schools safe"? The access to firearms has not changed much since the 70's, yet even during those turbulent years of protest , we did not have multiple school shootings, What has changed in society that would lead our children to consider such heinous acts of violence? Restricting access to firearms only gets you part of the way to a solution. We must secure our schools and take a deep dive into what the cause are behind this violence.
3
And while you’re pondering about what changed in society, the next mass shooting takes place. Restricting access to firearms IS the solution. It worked very well in Australia, an immigrant society not unlike America, with the same kind of changes since the 70’s.
7
George, your premise is incorrect. While the fraction of Americans who own guns has been steady, or even declined since the 1970s, the number of guns per US capita has increased. This reflects increases in both US manufacturing and in imports. Another thing that has changed: the NRA has tripled its lobbying finances since the 1970s.
Some facts:
https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-numbers
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
I am a Canadian and can't vote but I plead with every reader to vote against every member of Congress who is opposed to gun control or is funded by the NRA. Enough is enough.
If I were a parent in the United States with children in school, I would leave the country. Canada is close. We had 5 school shootings in the last 10 years. You have had 22 in 5 months.
Please vote.
90
The NRA is nowhere near the top of the funding list.
Their MEMBERS vote - that is the voluntary association's advantage.
Gun ownership by women and minorities - especially parents - is zooming.
1
It's 10:30 at night here in California. And I am unable to sleep. I find myself rereading this column several times over as well as its comments. I'm trying to make sense of these killings, trying to wrap my head around these tragedies. And I can't. There is nothing more to say, because words are not helping. We've said them all.
There is a beautiful prayer called the Prayer of St. Francis. For me, as a "cafeteria" Catholic, I employ it as my creed rather than The Nicene. It begins with the words, "Make me an instrument of thy peace." For me, that means doing, putting our words into actions. With Gail Collins' fine piece, I find hundreds of us saddened and frustrated, with feelings of helplessness because of our present unconscionable state of politics in DC. But together we can be a powerful force to change what must be changed.
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I know we're supposed to understand the right-wing rural perspective on this, that they just love hunting, and guns for recreation; that they grew up with guns; that "guns don't kill people." At this point, their "Second Amendment rights" are destroying the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" of our children. If the whole point of America is to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then no Amendment is worth keeping when it tramples those securities. Someone has to be pretty selfish to value their recreational guns above our children's lives.
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You nailed it EXACTLY! When did these gun rights become more important than the right to life?? Oh wait, only the unborn apparently have a real right to life. This country has become nothing more than a cesspool.
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Gail, your piece and the responses to it, I am struck by the fact that people still believe that most politicians "know" what needs to be done, and are simply too afraid of offending the NRA/the gun lobby to do it.
When are we all going to acknowledge that the rot didn't start with Trump? The Republican party is now the party of extreme ideas, including that unrestricted gun ownership is vital to protect democracy, and if there are tragic events such as this, they are the price we pay.
Steve Scalise was shot, but he's not lobbying for gun control, is he? What about the parents of the shooters whose guns were used in these massacres? Are any of them speaking up about the need for gun control? Are they expressing regret at the culture of guns?
Trump's ideas of doing something about guns is to make sure more people have them. Idiotic? Sure, but he's not the only one to think it.
I think suggesting that our lawmakers are simply afraid is both patronizing AND giving them too much credit.
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Jeremy Bentham wrote toward the end of his life: "I was, however, a great reformist; but never suspected that the people in power were against reform. I supposed they only wanted to know what was good in order to embrace it."
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“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
- Upton Sinclair
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I am going to say it, the GOP has made it very clear that they are going to do nada to stop school shootings. Now it’s up to the parents, if you have a child or teenager in the house, do not have guns in your house. And yes, parents who provide access to guns are equally responsible for the deaths & injuries that may result.
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Gun laws merely nibble around the edges of this national crisis of gun violence. We need a compete change of culture - there is no place for fire arms and ammunition, of any kind, in civilian life. We need to elect legislators who can get rid of all guns or all ammunition from civilian society. Forget the NRA. Focus on electing bold, principled legislators and leaders, who can effect this cultural transformation.
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Vote.
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NRA. You love guns so much, you should be billed and
pay for all the medical expenses of damages to humans caused by guns and ammunition.
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until the NRA is treated as an ally of the murderers, americans better get used to this.
until most republicans and many democrats get their collective snouts out of the NRA money pigsty these events will go on and on and on.
the murder stats of other western democracies compared to the USA don't lie.
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If we had a caring, sincere government that truly tried to deal with the problems of guns, we'd be better off. However, we all know that isn't the case. The idiot in the White House, and the congress, for the most part, care more about themselves, than they do the citizens, ALL of them, not just the ones with money and influence. The NRA calls the shots, and most of the people swallowing all that garbage and tripe, are the same, uneducated, and small mined deplorables that voted for Trump. This country is in dire straits, and it's getting worse. The shootings, they well continue until common sense and sanity are brought to the forefront. Don't hold your breath, because we have idiots, liars and selfish morons running this country. Until, and unless this changes, it's business as usual. The shootings are going to continue. Get used to it.
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Yes, agreed, get used to it. This is America, GOP/ NRA of the USA.
Freedom to die here.
Hey, according to the GOP/NRA this young man was just exercising his second amendment rights.
Meanwhile the rest of the rational world see it as an act of a white male Christian terrorist.
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Texas. They're used to guns. That's their way of life. That's their way of death. Move slong everyone; nothing to see here.
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While we have a problem with guns, it is not only about guns.
To put the entire focus on guns is to ignore the other parts of the problem. Those also need attention, serious and immediate attention.
I say this not to avoid the gun problem, but to insist that we must deal with all of it, not seek some magical solution that avoids all the rest of this.
How do we have so many kids who would walk into their own school and kill all the other kids?
How do we have so many people who want to become mass killers?
We did not have these things in our recent past. What is changing? What can we do about it?
If it is guns, it is certainly not only guns. Those tools may not even be the biggest part of the problem, nor even the easiest to solve.
However, the rest of the problem is also about the human happiness among us, our quality of life, the things most worth doing to make life better. It is something we ought to want to address, not something to be avoided as much as possible.
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"This is the same Dan Patrick who responded to the shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando with a tweet quoting the Bible: “God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Feel free to think of this as the Blame the Almighty theory of mass shootings."
If there's ANY quote that should be repeated, it's this one. The NRA has sown and so very tragically, American families, children, briothers and sisters and parents are reaping what the NRA has sown.
Patrick is an evil-spirited (not mean spirited) TEXAS politician who lives on divisiveness, like so many of his political brothers.
Also disheartening was Governor Abbott concluding that this couldn't have been prevented, sucking up to the NRA before the victims' blood was even dry.
Pitiful.
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The truth is, everyone really does agree that shooting people is harmful and often lethal. That's why the NRA pays so much money to block any study of gun violence; they aready know what the result will be.
But there is a sliver of hope. It wasn't long ago that the CEOs of the tobacco companies took turns saying "Mr. chairman, I do not believe smoking causes cancer." It was an impressive display of lying, but in the end it didn't work.
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This is a real, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" moment if I have ever seen one.
I think there should be a national school boycott by students, parents and teachers until there is a firm commitment by Congress and the president to take action regarding school shootings, including gun control measures and providing mental health care.
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Thank you for not getting used to it, and for raising your voice every time.
When the representatives of the people cannot follow the wishes of the people, the majority of whom, including gun owners, favor more restrictions on gun ownership, it's time to vote the bums out. And more important, to get special interest money out of government.
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Mass shootings all have two things in common literally by definition - the "mass" (multiple victims) and the "shooting" (cause of injury is projectiles launched from guns). I'm am not opposed to discussions that include mental health, security, school hardening, training for gun owners, enforcing current laws and all the rest of the usual subjects, but can we please include just one more?
We are a nation awash in guns. Ignoring that is willful ignorance & distraction and is disingenuous at best. At worst? - maybe collectively we are all accessories, if not legally complicit then perhaps morally.
I won't say it's demoralizing because political frustration is not anywhere near as upsetting as losing a child and at least another ten families suffered that yesterday. It serves us well to remember that political positions are not mere academic exercises. They are often about more than liberty and the pursuit of happiness; sometimes they are about life.
Vote. Please.
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The problem is a little more complex than the way it's presented in the press and by our platitudinous politicians.
I was raised in Brooklyn and lived in Westchester County for several years. Then onto Florida for 9, my last 31 have been in Dallas. There is no "One" America. First I have to get the Ronnie Reagan thing off my chest. He thought Psychiatry was a communist plot. Many of our favorite murderers were/are mentally ill people who should have been hospitalized! the Ft. Lauderdale airport shooter should ring a bell!
Back to regionalism. Many folks trace their lineage back to our frontier settlers. They needed guns to survive. But, guns then and guns now are different guns. Muskets and six-shooters are long gone.
Many New Yorkers trace their heritage back to folks that got off a crowded steam ship, registered at Ellis Island and hit the streets of a crowded city looking for any kind of job to survive. They didn't have money for guns and bullets. They had to eat first. In those congested cities even a pea shooter was dangerous. Guns did not become a family treasure.
So is there a middle ground? Can we outlaw any weapon that is or can be adapted to automatic firing. Can we undo Reagan's policies and make it easier to place people in mental health facilities.
Can America be a nation of free "normal" people and non-automatic weapons, or am I dreaming?
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Although it was only one of many reasons that Americans turned against the war in Vietnam Nam, the images of death shown every night on the 6:00 o’clock news eventually took its toll on us. Theses images of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians were real and frightening.
Gun violence in this country, particularly in schools, is in many ways abstract to those not directly effected in the families and communities of those murdered and injured.
As distasteful as it may sound, put the images of the dead, mutilated bodies of these victims on TV. Yes, it will be appalling, sickening and distasteful. But it may be the extreme measure we need to jolt elected officials and NRA lobbyists into action to end this.
I think we’d all welcome the actions of a Congessional official vomiting in the halls of The Capitol after seeing such images of carnage and FINALLY standing up for the safety and security of our most vulnerable citizens.
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Perhaps American gun violence now calls for a more true name. Call it American Human Sacrifice. That's what Garry Wills implies in his prophetic essay after Sandy Hook:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch/
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I will never get used to this, but my outrage has been replaced with loathing for the millions of selfish, heartless Americans who resolutely enable this garbage.
I'm not proud of this emotion, but hey, here's ten more pointlessly dead kids, so.
I don't even know if gun control measures would help at this point, with the proliferation of weaponry and the glorification of violence in our society. But it would be far better than simply sitting here with bated breath waiting for the next slaughter.
Contempt for those who enable this. That's what I have to lay at their feet, right next to the death toll.
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I hold Donald J. Trump, the master of the Executive Order, Senator Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, the NRA and all the politicians who take money from and support the NRA responsible for the deaths of these school children.
These adults should receive their just due, to the fullest extent of the law.
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Yes! Guns everywhere creates more fear, which destroys our trust with our fellow citizens. That situation is tailor-made for demagogues and the proliferation of MORE guns.
Our politicians are paid to protect and to enhance the common areas of American life. Too many of them are afraid. Their job is to stand up to fear itself and reject cowardice.
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If we ever get legislators who actually do go after the guns, many officials will lose voes and funding. However, just as many voters—or maybe more—will vote for those legislators who actually did the right thing. It’s not too many doors or mental illness, it’s guns. It is time, as Justice Stevens urged, to repeal the Second Amendment
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I do not believe we are used to this violence but I do believe there is a great sense of frustration and anger because there is nothing we can do about it. The NRA has a blood brother in the White House and owns the Republican Congress. One of their own got shot and horribly wounded at a softball game and still nothing. The best we can hope for is to pray we don’t get caught in the crossfire.
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Too late for that, Gail. As long as we live in a country where our “leaders” find any excuse to allow gun ownership to proliferate the way it has, horrors like this will continue. As long as the NRA continues to buy off politicians, this will continue. The lives of our children come second to the right to bear arms.
I used to think that people would finally wake up and say no to all this, if someone shot up a white grammar school.
Sandy Hook came and went.
And here we are again.
Whatever will it take???
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How many times, throughout this year alone, have similar words been echoed?
How many times will we hear the President or his representative state that he'll do something and wonder when his next fund raiser with the NRA will take place?
We roar; yet....We didn't care enough after Sandy Hook, we didn't care enough after the Parkland students rose up, or after Las Vegas, and this too shall sadly pass until the next mass shooting.
Is this what makes America great? Is this what makes us number one? When will we finally have enough?
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Rise up young people, save your lives! Older gentlemans are dazed and confused!
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Thank you Gail, and pardon me for using the comments section on your article to address another article on the Times, but the editorial board seems currently to be running a 3-month-old editorial dated Feb. 15 entitled "How Congress Has Dithered as the Innocent Get Shot" with impressive charts on the number of mass shootings since Sandy Hook and the complete absence of legislation to curb gun deaths during the same period. Though the editorial ran the day after the Parkland massacre, the charts have been updated through this month and today's shooting at Santa Fe H.S. However, the editorial is no longer accepting comments because it is not current.
If I could comment there, I would say that the charts clearly make the point that Gail is getting at when she says that we have been through this so often and our reactions are now a ritual — one which sadly includes allies of the NRA who "quickly point their fingers as something other than ... guns." And I would ask of the Times that you create comparative charts of mass homicides by knives, by cars, by any other means, which will clearly illustrate that it is a lie that, “This is not about guns.” As the charts show, there are mass shootings every day, dozens and dozens each month, every month of the year, every year. There is no other weapon that compares with the lethality of guns.
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So far this year, more of our school kids have been killed in shootings than members of our military services. We are already used to it and greet each new shooting with useless banalities. “Thoughts and prayers”, “our hearts are breaking”, “more guns in the schools” and, my favorite, “God bless the NRA”.
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Consider the mental health problems exhibited by every one of the shooters. Mental health problems are what make certain people decide to pick up a gun and shoot as many as possible in any crowded area.
Congress will n-e-v-e-r vote for increased mental health care because health insurance companies would have to pay for that care which is usually chronic and would continue for years.
As long as insurance companies manage our health care, mental health care will forever be sidelined.
The insurance industry spends about as much money on bribing our congressional members as the NRA does.
Nothing will change until we get Congress to agree that mental health problems are what make certain people decide to pick up a gun and shoot as many as possible.
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...Surely, some shooters suffer some mental health deficits; these diseases just as surely exist elsewhere in the world.
A U.S. gun saturated society is part and parcel of the phenomenon of a desensitized culture lacking the elementary virtues of empathy. Trigger happiness rules the day because the imaginative, moral and intellectual capacities to grasp the awful consequences to individuals and families of violent senseless murder are extinguished. This is a moral, not a medically treatable mental disease. Indeed, it is the scientific "approach" which is partially responsible for these tragedies.
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On Wednesday May 16th, I stepped out the door from the criminal court building in downtown Greensboro into the plaza and was caught between the sounds of 2 gunshots and 5 African-American male youths fist-fighting.
I was prepared to take a stray bullet, since there was nothing I could do. Next day, local headlines read: "Two Courthouse Shootings and a Brawl Send Law Enforcement Into a Frenzy."
But another school-shooting --this last one -- crosses that red-line we all talk about. I'm now enraged. We are tired of the same-old talk. We are going after the NRA.
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “too many entrances and too many exits.”
No Sir! too many guns and not enough brains or morality to stop the flood of guns and senseless violence.
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Despair. Stomach ache. Frustrated. Sadness. I'm not getting used to it. And it will happen again...
Can I be honest here and say I hate the NRA? And I hate what has happened to our country.
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Are you kidding me? We haven't been "getting used to this" since Columbine. The NRA's stranglehold on our Constitutional Amendments and our Congress' collective lack of morals has put us exactly where we are.
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