A decade ago, a gunman killed 20 students and six teachers at a Connecticut elementary school, and many Americans wearily asked what the hell it would take to keep people safe on campuses as gun violence metastasized in a nation where the Constitution says gun rights shall not be infringed upon.
A week ago, a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, and many Americans are asking the same damn question with the same level of anger and heartache. Maybe this time it'll be different. The left, the center and a larger group on the right than you might think are expressing major frustration at gun-rights activists who think that campus carnage — unique to to the U.S. in the developed world — doesn't require any new response. These activists in turn blame poor parenting, cultural malaise, violent video games, insufficient security and more for the shootings. They reject the idea that they are enabling access to firearms in a way that is a formula for recurring disaster — despite the ghoulish fact that among those under 20 years of age in the U.S., guns finally surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of death in 2020.
Meanwhile, the one voice who matters most remains in his rut. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., downplayed measures being crafted by House Democrats, which included more reliable, consistent background checks and crackdowns on proxy purchases of weapons. Instead, he said, senators are "discussing how we might be able to come together to target the problem, which is mental illness and school safety." That definition of "the problem" is a part of it.
But there are hints that progress is possible. In recent days, GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas have been speaking to their Democratic colleagues about gun legislation, and some influential cultural conservative pundits — including Ross Douthat and Hugh Hewitt — have expressed interest in a simple, powerful first step: banning anyone under 21 from buying a semi-automatic rifle. Ten days before the Texas shooting, a gunman the same age — 18 years old — killed 10 people with a semi-automatic rifle at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. The "slippery slope" argument — that any meaningful new gun restriction is the first step toward repeal of the Second Amendment — is a stretch when that step is keeping weapons of war out of the hands of the nation's teenagers.
Another step could be building on the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The passionate defender of the Second Amendment also emphasized that the government was firmly within its rights to deny weapons to people with mental illnesses and to establish comprehensive "conditions and qualifications" on the sale of firearms. It was only four years ago that then-Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott — working with a bipartisan group of state lawmakers — signed a gun reform bill less than a month after 17 people were killed inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The law banned firearm sales to those younger than 21, set a three-day waiting period on purchases of types of rifles and made it easier for authorities to remove weapons from people perceived as threats to the public. If a GOP-controlled state government could do this, there's hope a federal government controlled by Democrats could do the same — even if faced with GOP filibusters in an election year with Congress up for grabs.
California shows attacking this issue on multiple fronts works. Courts have thrown out some of its gun laws, but California's approach has left it with 38 percent fewer gun deaths per capita than the U.S. as a whole, destroying claims that states with the most gun laws have spotty records on gun violence.
Steps such as those seen in Florida won't be far-reaching enough for many Americans. But they are better than nothing. If a dozen or so Senate Republicans can figure this out, change is possible. Perhaps that's naive, but it is driven by the constructive hope that our nation still has the capacity to rise to the occasion — because as the mass shooting at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical building Wednesday night showed, our uniquely American horror won't stop without it.
____
The editorial board operates independently from the U-T newsroom but holds itself to similar ethical standards. We base our editorials and endorsements on reporting, interviews and rigorous debate, and strive for accuracy, fairness and civility in our section. Disagree? Let us know.
____
