Via NBC News: The U.S. has had at least 39 mass shootings in just 24 days so far this year, data shows
NPR this morning stated that the number of mass shootings in the US this year to date was “over forty” which stands to reason given that the chart above was for earlier this week.
Recognizing both the political barriers and public policy complexities surrounding this issue, it is simply alarming that we have insufficient desire to attempt to address this problem in any serious way. Instead, we are going in the opposite direction, such as the state of my residence making it legal to carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. That we treat firearms with less regulatory controls than we do automobiles is, well, tragically absurd.
I have also noted that, as usual, reporting on complex issues is just too simplistic. For example,
Those figures mark a historically quick start for mass shootings this year, with more mass shootings recorded so far this month than in any January over the past decade, according to the archive, which has kept records since 2014. This is despite Congress having passed the most sweeping federal gun control law in 30 years last year, enhancing background checks and encouraging states to pass so-called red flag laws, among other provisions.
Well, first “the most sweeping federal gun control law in 30 years” is still not all that sweeping. And second, it was passed “last year” meaning is it kind of early to assess impacts. But the real issue is simply that the laws that have been passed are anemic.
I find the reporting a problem because it makes it sounds like all efforts are in vain, which makes further attempts in the future harder to obtain because, well, what’s the point? I got a similar vibe from some reporting I heard on the California shootings, as they noted that that California has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, but without really any definition of how tough (or, perhaps, not so tough) those laws are, let alone the whole federalism issue (i.e., one state may have tougher laws than a neighboring state).
Of course, the truly depressing part of all of this is that there is an utter lack of national consensus that anything of substance should be done about this problem. (But at least Congress can have a fight over whether we should pay the bills we have already incurred, with people from the Thelma and Louise faction of the GOP being willing to dive the economy off a cliff by asking for things they do not understand. Governance!).
