NRA is powerful, but voters can be, too

If not now, when? When is the time to stop mass shootings? Not after Sandy Hook, not after Parkland, Florida? Are we just going to shake our heads, say it’s all hopeless, and give over our power to the NRA?

If we give up, we know exactly what will happen; it hardly takes a crystal ball.

Instead, we can take a lesson from Australia, which was galvanized after a 1996 shooting of 35 people. They banned automatic and semiautomatic weapons and, since 1996, they have had no mass shootings.

What about the assertion the NRA is fond of, that what we need is more guns, not fewer? If we just had more guns, we would be safe. This, however, overlooks the fact that if huge numbers of guns kept a population safe, the U.S. would be the safest place on earth. We already are the most heavily armed country in the world. We already have as many guns as we have people. But it is a particular kind of gun that is used in mass shootings. The only thing the AR-15 can do that other guns can’t is to kill a lot of people very quickly. Nobody outside the military needs a weapon like the AR-15.

To get assault weapons banned will take some heavy lifting. Congress is in the pocket of the NRA. But we the people do have power. We can demand of our senators and representatives that they pass a bill banning automatic and semiautomatic guns. If they refuse to do this, there is the ballot box to use against them.

The time is now. Why wait until the next mass shooting and the one after that? Sen. Cotton’s number is (202) 224-2353, Sen. Boozman’s is (202) 224-4843. Congressman Womack’s is (202) 225-4301.

MARY ELSIE MARCHANT Winslow