Silence over school shootings cannot stand
In a sign of how fast the news moves these days, what would have in other times been a dominant story for weeks has now already been pushed to the back burner. On March 27, six people, including three children, were killed in a mass shooting in Nashville, Tenn., and yet it took only days for the nation’s attention to move on.
The legal issues of a certain former president played a role in that, but it’s an indication that we’ve become, as a nation, almost numb to the crisis of mass shootings.
That can’t be allowed to happen. What occurred in Nashville demands a national response, especially in the wake of school shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Parkland, Fla.; and, of course, Sandy Hook, Conn., a little more than a decade ago, among many others. We can’t normalize a world where school shootings are simply a fact of life.
Not everyone agrees. The Tennessee congressman who represents the district said as much in the wake of the shooting. “If you think Washington is going to fix this problem, you’re wrong. They’re not going to fix this problem,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. One could ask why he bothered running for Congress at all.
The truth is, he’s wrong. It’s a fact that there are millions of guns in circulation in the United States, and no action is going to change that. But states have a patchwork of different laws, and statistics show that states with tougher gun laws have lower rates of gun violence.
That doesn’t mean mass shootings don’t happen in states with tough laws. California, for instance, has been the site of the San Bernardino mass shooting and others. Porous state lines and other factors, including online sales, continue to be a problem. But the patterns are clear — shootings are more common in states with lax gun laws.
Connecticut is on the far end of the spectrum in terms of gun safety, a consequence of the Sandy Hook killings that stand as the worst day in the history of the state. As anyone who follows the news also knows, that does not mean we are free of gun violence, which remains a scourge in our cities. The state is moving the shore up those weaknesses in our laws. The General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee voted recently to approve a comprehensive proposal introduced by Gov. Ned Lamont that seeks to prevent acts of gun violence, including mass shootings, with an additional focus on community violence, domestic violence, suicides and accidental shootings.
It’s a worthy step. But it won’t stop the killings. As long as guns are in circulation and other states allow easy sales, their availability will not go away. Still, it does make it harder for people to acquire weapons who are intent on causing harm, and as the statistics show, tougher gun laws lead to better public safety.
What is needed is national action. Connecticut can only do so much. Today, it’s the attitude of that Tennessee congressman that holds sway, much to everyone’s misfortune. Connecticut can and should take action, but safety ultimately is in the hands of our national leaders, who must do better.