Why don’tmass shootings bring changes?
Gun control critics, advocates play same roles in each tragedy.
It’s become WASHINGTON— a tragic but numbingly routine part of the American landscape by now.
Everyoneknowstheirroles after another mass shooting. Cable news keeps tabs as the body count climbs, sickeningly, upward. Experts are trotted out to tell us Why It Happened. Politicians reach for their script of tweets about thoughts and prayers, and gratitude to first responders.
Gun-control groups proclaim outrage. Gun-rights organizations argue that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with one.
Funerals are held. Tears are shed. Tales of heroes and victims gradually fade.
And nothing rea l ly changes.
Then it happens again. Rep. Brad Wenstrup and RichardMartinez have both lived through this shockingly familiar cycle. But on what to do about it, they — and so much of America — are irreparably divided.
Wenstrup, an Army veteran and a Republican lawmaker fromCincinnati, was there on the June morning this year when Rep. Steve Scalisewas shotby a stranger at a ballfield in Alexandria, Virginia. After the shooting stopped, Wenstrup, an Army surgeon who served in Iraq, ran to Scalise’s side and applied a tourniquet to squelch the bleeding, treatment credited with helping to save his life. Last week, Wenstrup — who credits the police for saving his colleague’s life by taking out thegunman— cheered along with the rest of the chamber as Scalise finally returned.
Martinezwas the father of Christopher Michaels-Martinez, a 20-year-old whose life was cut short by a gunman at theUniversity of California-Santa Barbara who killed six in May 2014. To him, each mass shooting is a stark reminder that nothing has happened to prevent another shooting like the one that abbreviated his funny and fiercely athletic boy’s life.
Martinez now argues for gun control. Wenstrup, like most in his party, is a reliable vote for gun rights.
While gun-control groups point to a handful of measures they see as progress — Rhode Island’s governor is expected to sign a bill this week that would bar convicteddomestic abusers from owning a gun — gun-rights groups have prevailed more often than not in such places as the Ohio Statehouse and the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. House plans to vote soon on a bill that would, among other things, reduce the current restrictions on purchasing silencers. Proponents say it will keep hunters from losing their hearing; opponents say it would make it harder for police to locate active shooters.
Congress also is considering ameasure thatwould allow reciprocity on concealed carry, meaning if a gun owner got a permit in one state it would be good in another.
In the Statehouse, meanwhile, there are no fewer than six pending gun bills, every one of which would expand the ability to carry guns.
And the shootings continue.
JimIrvine calls it “the definition of insanity.”
Irvine is the president of the Buckeye Firearms Association. To him, the reasons the LasVegas gunman killed at dozens and injured hundreds aren’t all that important. What’smore important, he said, is that it happened, and that the next person who does this will try for an even higher body count. All we can do, he said, is be vigilant and prepared to fight back or save ourselves.
“We, as a society, better come to grips with this and better start working harder than they are to bemoreprepared,” he said.
Irvine does not think the shooting could have been stopped by tougher laws or background checks. If the shooter was in possession of a fully automaticweapon thatwas legally obtained, he already would have undergone an extensive federal background check, Irvine said.
But Andrew Patrick, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said while it’s hard to know yetwhether laws might have stopped the shooting, it’s harder to watch the “steady drip” of gunshot victim after gunshot victim.
“What we saw (in Las Vegas) is going to keep happening until we start making changes,” he said.
On Sunday night, Wenstrup watched a feature on “60Minutes” about the Scalise shooting spree. The piece marked something of a turning point for him; finally, he said, a bad situation had turned into a positive one. Scalise had recovered, to the relief and joy of Democrats and Republicans alike. They had turned a page.
And then Monday happened.
“We didn’t get to enjoy it very long,” he said.