A mass shooting, more platitudes

So here we are again — watching the same grim videos of students fleeing their own high school, arms held high in the air. Here we are again seeing the anguish of parents, hugging the living, mourning the dead. And here we are again listening to the same old platitudes because words are cheap, action takes effort.

What we know today — other than the death toll of 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. — is that somehow a 19-year-old with a host of mental problems and a life filled with too many personal losses had managed to amass an arsenal of weapons.

Those weapons included an

AR-15 assault weapon, which the family that had given him shelter following the death of his mother last November knew about. It was the weapon reportedly used in Wednesday’s shooting.

What we also know today — days too late to save those students and a football coach who threw himself into harm’s way to save other students — is that there were warning signs everywhere. Warnings that were never heeded.

So here’s a troubled 19-yearold too young to buy a beer, but old enough to buy an assault weapon and about a half dozen other weapons — all legally.

He puts it all on social media so there should be no mistake about what he labeled his “arsenal.” And then there are the photos of dead animals, a bloodied frog — all found after the

fact by law enforcement who called it “very, very disturbing.”

That the alleged shooter might have also belonged to a white supremacist group simply provides more fodder that allows everyone to divide along the usual guns/ mental health/politics fault lines.

Which, of course, allows for the usual recriminations.

Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he told the speaker of the Florida House that “if someone is mentally ill he should not have access to a gun.”

Well, that’s a start — a very narrow start.

And President Trump, “No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school. No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them good-bye in the morning.” He mentions mental illness, but not guns.

Broward County Schools Superintendent Rob Runcie said, “Now is the time to have a real conversation about gun control legislation,” adding that if adults can’t manage that in their lifetimes, students will do it.

But what precisely are any or all of them going to do about it — and what have they been doing to date?

How many horrific shootings does it take? This is the third mass shooting in the U.S. in the past five months. Are the “bump stocks” which helped the Las Vegas shooter to slaughter 58 people last October outlawed yet? The feds are still “studying” the issue. (At least here in Massachusetts we’ve already done that much.)

Should every 18-year-old have the right to purchase his very own assault weapon? Is that what the Founders drafted the Second Amendment for?

Frankly U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Salem) put it best yesterday when in response to a Trump tweet saying, “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school,” Moulton responded, “I agree with every word @realDonaldTrump said here. I invite him to get off his ass and join me in trying to do something about it.”

Maybe that’s good advice for all of us — before the next one makes us weep.