The words above are the title of a Washington Post editorial dated 18 November 2019. It recounts that while Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was pleading for more strict gun control laws on the U.S. Senate floor earlier this month, a mass shooting was underway at a school in Santa Clarita, California. Two more have occurred since.
The editorial goes on: “Thursday’s shooting was the fifth mass shooting at a U.S. school or school event so far this year and, overall, there have been 369 mass shootings catalogued by the Gun Violence Archive in 2019 as of Sunday.” The House last February passed and sent to the Senate a bill to require universal background checks. The Senate has not acted.
The editorial ends: “How many more [mass shootings] will there be before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decides it is time to stop sitting on his hands and do something about the problem?”
In the U.S., we have 120.5 firearms for every 100 residents. Every day, 310 people are shot in the U.S. Every day. What will it take to get us Americans to reinterpret—or better yet rewrite—the Second Amendment to the Constitution to restrict the number of firearms available for killing each other? How many children must die?
Tom Glenn, Writer 