President Biden and the First Lady traveled to Lewiston, Maine, yesterday to meet with the families of the victims of the October 25 mass shooting and with the first responders. He spoke about the situation we find ourselves in with mass shootings becoming all too common:
“This is about common-sense, reasonable and responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities. Because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, a school, a church, without being shot and killed. As we mourn today in Maine, this tragedy opens painful, painful wounds all across the country. Too many Americans have lost loved ones or survived the trauma of gun violence. I know because Jill and I have met with them in Buffalo, in Uvalde, in Monterey Park, in Sandy Hook ― too many to count. From places that never make the news, all across America.”
It's become a ritual in America now. The shock and horror of a mass shooting from a place that never makes the news, followed by outpourings of grief and feelings of numbness, then a Presidential visit to comfort the grieving. No other major nation in the world has the permissive gun laws that allow military-style assault rifles in the hands of the civilian population. The minimum measures of expanded background checks, red flag laws, limited round magazines and other measures soon fade from view, not to mention the obvious action of banning the sale of those assault rifles as we once did. As long as the careers of Republican / Shooters Party politicians depend on bribes from the gun lobby, that won't change until we replace them.
(photo: Evan Vucci, AP)
