Pathological denial in the face of guns

Americans may some day look back in shame at a time when their country was awash in guns, every few weeks people were slaughtered en masse and society repeatedly mourned its dead even as it facilitated their murder with easy access to powerful weapons.

The five deadliest shootings in modern US history have all occurred in the past decade, two of them in the past five weeks. The latest came on Sunday when 26 worshippers at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, were cut down by a masked gunman with an assault-style rifle and an apparent grudge against his in-laws.

As shocking as the killings are, equally shocking is that the nation’s political leaders do nothing to stop them and even deny that gun violence has anything to do with … guns. Reacting to Sunday’s massacre, President Donald Trump asserted: “This isn’t a guns situation.”

Both Texas governor Greg Abbott and Trump blamed mental illness for the latest tragedy. And yes, such killings often involve the nexus of guns and mental problems. But most people with mental illness are not violent. Nor is mental illness a predictor of gun violence. Other countries battle mental illness, too, but other countries do not have anywhere near the level of firearm homicides as the US.

After each bloodbath, sensible people propose sensible measures: universal background checks to replace a system with loopholes; bans on assault weapons and highcapacity magazines; and even the narrowest of changes, prohibiting the “bump stock” devices used by the Las Vegas killer to turn his semiautomatics into even more effective killing machines. Hopes for change are raised. Then the gun lobby pounces, cowardly members of Congress fold and the violent cycle continues.

In one sense, Trump is right that “this is a mental health problem at the highest level”. For the nation’s top leaders to watch innocent people mowed down and refuse to do anything to stop it is indeed madness. McLean, Virginia, November 6.