The Political Ritual After Mass Shootings
The
Republican presidential candidates were quick to offer sympathy but
little else to the nation, to the grieving families and to the terrified
town where the latest in American gun carnage took 10 lives on Thursday at an Oregon community college.
“We
have to really get to the bottom of it,” Donald Trump, usually the most
voluble candidate in offering quick-fix certainty about national
challenges, told The Washington Post. “It’s so hard to even talk about
these things.”
Now,
as the presidential campaigns intensify, is precisely the time that he
and the other candidates must talk about these things — about the
horrendous toll the mass shootings have inflicted on the nation,
with no end in sight. Like other Republican politicians, and many
Democrats, too, Mr. Trump simplistically narrowed the topic of the gun
massacre to “another mental health problem.”
This has become the standard political line, particularly among Republicans, for ducking the crucial fact that easy access
to powerful arsenals — the Oregon murderer reportedly had 13 firearms,
six of which he brought with him — is the great modern enabler for
individuals, mentally ill or not, to massacre the innocent in shooting
sprees.
The
contrast could not be greater between the bromide-driven slate of
Republican candidates promising thoughts and prayers after “this
senseless tragedy” and President Obama in his understandable fury
and near despair over the political cowering to the gun industry and
its lobbyists. Mass shootings have become an unsurprising part of
American life, with lame public rituals in which politicians express
grief and then retreat quickly into denial about this scourge.
The gun lobby has such a grip on Congress that it has successfully squelched most federal research on the problem. It wasn’t until last year that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prompted by the White House, issued a report confirming that mass shootings have been rising significantly in recent years.
In a 13-year study,
analysts found that while the average number of annual shooting sprees
with multiple casualties was 6.4 a year from 2000 to 2006, that number
jumped to 16.4 a year from 2007 to 2013. The study found that many of
the gunmen had studied previous high-profile shootings and were
attracted to the attention that mass killers received when they staged
lethal attacks.
Modern
high-powered weapons, adapted from war and unscrupulously marketed on
the home front, have unfortunately provided the means for a shooter to
act out his anger and despair in a matter of minutes. The state-sponsored citizens report
on the gun massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six workers in Newtown,
Conn., in 2012 concluded there is “no legitimate place in the civilian
population” for fast-firing rifles and large-capacity magazines that
were invented for the military but have flooded the American
marketplace.
These
are the problems that political leaders should be discussing after the
latest gun tragedy. Democratic presidential candidates have not ducked
the issue. Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly called
for greater gun safety, telling voters, “We have to take on the gun
lobby.” Bernie Sanders, who as a senator from Vermont has been
criticized for not being strong enough on the issue, firmly endorsed
President Obama’s gun control agenda after the Oregon massacre. He said
he is tired of sending condolences to grieving families after these
brutal murders.
Republican
candidates should be no less tired of sending condolences. In the
presidential debates, they should not be allowed to retreat behind the
mental health issue and avoid confronting the grim reality. They should
explain what actions they will take, if elected, to avoid being the
nation’s serial griever-in-chief.
