After newsroom shooting, take broader approach to gun violence

If you believe that America should accept regular mass killings as a price of the Second Amendment, turn the page or swipe on.

But if you believe that firearm violence shames this country and that our democracy could prevent needless tragedies and respect the Constitution, hear me out on this Independence Day.

Like many South Florida journalists of a certain age, I knew Rob Hiaasen. He and four colleagues at The Annapolis (Md.) Capital Gazette were murdered last week.

Everything you have read about Rob Hiaasen is true. He was talented, funny and kind. Put him in any newsroom, and the newsroom got better.

His killing is tragic. But so are all of the other killings from all the other shootings. Sandy Hook. Pulse. Sutherland Springs. Las Vegas. Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Santa Fe. Charleston. Virginia Tech. Red Lake. San Bernardino. Umpqua Community College.

The names toll like church bells. Each took the lives of people like Rob Hiaasen. After each one, there were tears, rage and calls for Congress to act.

Nothing. Ever. Happened.

Last week, a TV talking head opined that the Annapolis massacre might be problematic for gun control advocates. The weapon was ordinary — a shotgun, not the sort of militarystyle weapon used in Parkland and Las Vegas. What legislation, he wondered, could arise?

Such an argument misses the point. Even the most comprehensive, well-designed firearms bill wouldn’t stop every mass shooting. Specifics also draw immediate opposition from the National Rifle Association and likeminded lawmakers.

Washington mostly has backtracked since the Gun Control Act of 1968. The 1994 assault weapons ban came with lots of loopholes and Congress failed to reauthorize it 10 years later.

One still wonders how the massacre of 20 first-graders and six teachers in December 2012 couldn’t move Congress five months later to pass such a modest change as expanded background checks. Polls indicated that 90 percent of Americans supported that idea.

Nothing. Ever. Happened.

So perhaps a different approach would work better. At this point, anything would work better.

Forget for the moment about specifics. Instead, Congress could authorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study firearm violence as a public health issue. The facts support such action.

America’s rate of homicide by firearm is roughly 25 percent higher than those of other high-income countries. Worldwide rates are highest in the Central American countries where violence is driving migrants to our border, but should the worst countries be our comparison point? This week, the Chinese embassy in Washington warned tourists about gun violence.

Though the United States makes up just 5 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for 31 percent of mass shootings. That’s a CNN calculation, so Fox News fan might challenge the definition of mass shooting. But elsewhere in the developed world, Annapolis would be an exception. Here, it’s just another day.

Fifty years ago, we set the first federal safety standards for cars and trucks. Washington refused to accept the idea that an entrenched interest — the auto industry — could block reforms to protect the public. Fatality rates are roughly one-fifth what they were in the 1960s.

Anticipating the comment, I understand that the Constitution doesn’t reference cars but does reference “arms.” To the NRA, this means almost any attempt to regulate firearms is unconstitutional.

But that’s not true. In his landmark Heller opinion, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that rights under the Second Amendment are “not unlimited.” Scalia added that Americans do not have the right “to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any matter whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

The CDC has been here before. In the early 1990s, the agency examined the NRA’s claim that more guns in homes means more safety. When the study refuted that assertion, the NRA lobbied Congress to prevent the CDC from studying gun violence. Lawmakers obliged 22 years and 600,000 firearm deaths ago.

Organizers and participants at Moms Demand Action rallies affirm their respect for the Second Amendment. Scalia’s opinion leaves Washington with many options.

First, though, the government should try to determine why the United States has a unique firearm violence problem. The study should be more rigorous and objective than the panel Gov. Scott rigged to defend “stand your ground” after the Trayvon Martin shooting.

After Annapolis, we have five more dead and more surely coming.

Something. Must. Happen.