A lifeordeath reason for action
Aspate of senseless shooting sprees and gun scares have shaken the country anew and provoked the latest round of puzzling over the perpetrators’ motives. What the attacks undoubtedly have in common, however, is the means: powerful firearms that are too easily obtained. Shattering a pandemicyear lull of sorts, the resurgence of the American mass shooting served cruel notice that Congress’ long inaction on gun violence continues.
On Monday, a 21yearold man allegedly used a semiautomatic rifle he had obtained six days earlier to kill 10, including a police officer, at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo. The massacre in a region that has endured repeated mass shootings came less than a week after another 21yearold man allegedly used a 9mm handgun purchased hours earlier to kill eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at three Atlantaarea spas.
Also on Monday, a Texas National Guard convoy carrying COVID vaccines was ambushed and held up by a heavily armed man who was ultimately arrested without further incident. And in Napa County on Tuesday, a SWAT unit responding to reports of an armed person searched the Yountville Veterans Home, the scene of a mass shooting in 2018, before clearing the scene without making any arrests.
Despite the inherent racial implications of the Georgia shootings, a debate over the shooter’s motivation embroiled authorities ranging from a local sheriff ’s department to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Vice President Kamala Harris. The backandforth over the Colorado killer’s rationale has already begun.
What inspires such horrific crimes is an important and unavoidable question, if often an inscrutable one; some of the nation’s worst mass shootings remain unexplained. But the most obvious and neglected public policy response transcends the twisted inspiration of mass murderers, who represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s gun violence.
Congress should start with Democratic Napa County Rep. Mike Thompson’s legislation to close huge loopholes in the background check system, passed by the House just weeks ago along with another reasonable bill to extend federal review of firearm purchases. The Senate, where the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on gun violence Tuesday, presents an all too familiar barrier: the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass most bills. This rash of violence gives the chamber’s 50 Democrats a lifeordeath reason to restore majority rule.