The ‘Connecticut effect’ will never fade

Each time there’s a mass shooting, we reach a new superlative. Each mass shooting is the worst ever — until the next one. And there will be a next one, and one after that, and after that. Unless we get the courage and finally the will to do something about it.

Once again the nation reacts in horror, this time to the slaughter of 59 people and more than 500 wounded Sunday night in Las Vegas. Once again a president has to offer sympathy to the anguished families.

Add a country music concert now to the list: a nightclub in Orlando, a church in Charleston, a Christmas party in San Bernardino, a movie theater in Aurora, a university in Virginia, a shopping mall in Tuscon, an elementary school in Newtown.

One could get numb from the sheer volume of violence. But don’t let that happen. Numbness does not lead to action — anger does.

These mass shootings do not have to happen. Are they “evil” incarnate, the acts of the mentally sick? Possibly, and probably. But that does not excuse inaction. Another mass shooting, the worst for now, should not be dismissed as the work of evil.

It should be faced head-on, fearlessly, by leaders in Congress who must finally take a stand for public safety instead of a hand for the powerful gun lobby. It should be faced, with conviction, by ordinary Americans who are outraged and want action. Do not wait for action, take action — contact your senator and representative today and tell them you, who elected them, insist they make our country safer.

First, it is abundantly clear, military-style weapons do not belong in the hands of citizens. That a weapon designed for warfare, a weapon engineered to kill quickly and in bulk, is available for purchase by any misfit, mentally ill psychopath, is simply beyond comprehension. These weapons should be banned.

Second, universal background checks should be enacted for every gun sale. A majority of Americans support this common sense measure. Would this stop every mass shooting?

No.

Would it help make the country safer? Unquestionably.

It will take days, if not weeks, to sort out the route that brought 64-year-old Stephen Paddock from his quiet retirement community home in Mesquite, Nevada, to the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel with 23 weapons and a malevolent plan to kill.

Some cynical NRA spokesperson incredibly quipped in 2013 that once the “Connecticut effect” — his callous assessment of the national grief that ensued from the killing of 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 — dissipated, his organization could resume its push to weaken America’s gun laws.

The “Connecticut effect,” of course, will never expire. And, alas, it is reinvigorated repeatedly by the “San Bernardino effect” of 2015, the “Pulse nightclub effect” of 2016, and now the “Las Vegas effect.”

When will the “Common Sense effect” seize the consciences of Congress and give it the moral fortitude to address this lethal national flaw? That won’t happen unless you demand it.