Can the senseless cycle of mass shootings end?


Columbine High School. Virginia Tech University. Fort Hood, Texas. Aurora, Colo. Newtown, Conn. Chardon, Ohio. Charleston, S.C.

Now our nation can add Roseburg, Ore., to that somber and shameful roll call of some of the most deadly mass shooting sites in American history. Just last week, a demented gunman shot and killed nine and wounded seven on the campus of Umpqua Community College in the small western Oregon city of Roseburg, a community about the size of Niles in the Mahoning Valley.

Once again, the nation reacted swiftly with shock, horror and disbelief. Once again, debates about easy access to firearms and difficult access to mental health services have catapulted to the top of the nation’s public-policy agenda and have trended prominently on Twitter.

Once again, our country’s mourner-in-chief dutifully called an emergency news conference to memorialize the victims, comfort their families and appeal for a saner, safer America.

And once again, we, too, are compelled to comment on this latest chapter of our national horror story that shows no signs of reaching any satisfying conclusion any time soon. Unlike Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump – who called mass shooters “geniuses” and their actions inevitable – or Jeb Bush – who responded to the shooting with a flippant “stuff happens” remark – we refuse to believe that America has become completely numbed by the never-ending cycle of mass-shooting atrocities. After all, such “stuff” does not happen with predictable regularlity in other civilized nations around the globe.

Neither, however, can we ally ourselves with extremists who demand disarming adults of their Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.

Nonetheless we recognize that with those rights come responsibilities. Most Americans agree. A full 75 percent of respondents to a recent Pew poll supported expansion of background checks to better prevent convicted criminals and the mentally ill from unfettered access to firearms and to their potentially irresponsible use of them.

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITY

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who holds an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association, agrees. He proposed legislation in August to keep people who are mentally ill from purchasing firearms by expanding the records sent to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and improving mental-health-treatment programs. That plan merits placement on the fast track of this fall’s congressional agenda.

But of course, even with the strictest background checks, some firearms will still end up in the wrong hands. That’s why it’s important for friends and family members of those with propensities toward violence to work to ensure that firearms are securely locked. The state cannot be expected to do it all.

Clearly, doing nothing – as has been the course through the past 20 years of heightened mass shootings – has done nothing to slow the carnage. According to the group, the Mass Shooting Tracker, the Oregon killings brought the 294th death or injury in the U.S. this year from a shooting that involved four or more victims. That’s more than one victim of a mass shooting each day. Since the Newtown elementary school massacre three years ago, 142 shootings in schools and on campuses have been logged as well.

By using the tragedy in Oregon as a starting point to enact reasonable and responsible safeguards on firearms ownership and to personally commit to reducing gun violence in our own spheres of influence, some long-lasting good may result from the fleeting minutes of evil that ripped at the heart of Roseburg and the nation this month. If we fail to act, look for more carnage, more shock and more editorials like this one lamenting yet another evil rampage and another senseless stain on our nation’s image as a civilized society.

The anguishing routine of such mass killings punctuated President Barack Obama’s address to the nation in the immediate aftermath of the community college killings: “I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that. And that’s terrible to say. And it can change.”

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