Every day, more blood

The U.S. flag flew high above the White House Sunday at the top of the pole, as it did on all public buildings and grounds, military facilities, naval vessels, embassies, legations and consular offices here and around the world.

All was normal, as the five days of Old Glory at half-staff to honor the 10 murdered victims of last Monday’s shooting massacre in Boulder ordered by President Joe Biden had ended on Saturday.

In those five days there was zero gun safety legislation voted on in Congress, from universal background checks to banning assault weapons, as well as zero gun safety executive actions taken by Biden and his agencies. Just as there had been zero bills and zero executive orders in the prior five days, when the flags were lowered to honor the eight murdered victims of the Atlanta shooting massacre. The crews lowering and raising the flags have been busy, even if no one else in government has been.

But the shooters have been busy, with about 100 gun deaths every day in America. That’s 1,000 people slain by bullets in the 10 days while the flags were lowered, and Washington did nothing but offer words of sorrow and flag symbolism. As typically two-thirds of firearms fatalities are suicides, it means that there were likely more than 300 killed by the hand of another with a gun in that time span. Unless the corpses are all stacked up together, no one notices and no one cares, except for the grieving families and communities.

Would a single 300-body massacre get someone to change the lax laws and weak regulations that allow basically anyone to get military-grade armaments? Maybe not, since 58 gunned down and hundreds more wounded in Las Vegas didn’t matter. Neither did 49 murdered in Orlando or 32 shot dead at Virginia Tech spur reform, and on and on and on.

Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress make promises as the NRA gears up to fight. Meanwhile, the blood keeps flowing.