Focus on next shooting spree

This appeared on Bloomberg View:

There are many unanswered questions about the man who on Sunday shot and killed at least 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. In the days ahead, more facts will emerge. But the most common question — could anything have been done to stop him? — will also be the most difficult to answer, the most hotly debated.

If the goal is to stop future shooting sprees — and it should be — the right question to ask is simple: What steps can be taken to reduce their likelihood? Nothing can change what happened, and no law can stop every murderous madman. But by examining data and evidence, there are ways to increase the chances that future plots can be foiled, and to mitigate the harm that the successful ones inflict.

That’s why Congress banned automatic rifles, for instance, and created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Both have saved countless lives. The trouble is, whenever such a mass shooting occurs, elected officials who fear the gun lobby pretend nothing more can be done. They offer prayers and platitudes that are quickly forgotten, instead of enacting policies to help defend a nation that is constantly under attack from its not-so-well-regulated militia.

Sunday’s massacre should also prompt elected officials to contemplate two facts: One, mass shootings are often committed by domestic abusers. And two, in states where background checks are required on all handgun sales, as opposed to states where they are required only at registered gun dealers, 47 per cent fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners.

Americans do not elect representatives to pray for them, nor to kneel at the gun lobby’s altar. But until voters demand a more active and urgent response from Washington and state capitols, funeral bells from mass killings will continue to ring across the land.