Another Day, Another Mass Shooting In The United States

Just days after the mass shooting in Colorado Springs, we have another in San Bernardino, California. This time at least 14 innocent people were killed, and at least another 17 were wounded. It's not known at this time (while I'm writing this) whether this was a terrorist act (either right-wing christian or muslim jihadist). But there is one thing we do know -- it's another mass shooting, and far too many of those are happening in this country.

In the first 336 days in this year, we have had 355 mass shootings (a shooting in which at least four people were shot). That's more than one mass shooting every day -- an absurd number that no other developed country even comes close to matching. In fact, no country (except those at war) comes close to matching the number of mass shootings this country has.

The chart above (from The Washington Post) shows the number of mass shootings each day in this country -- note that the few days with no mass shooting have been more than made up for by multiple mass shootings on other days.

How long are we going to put up with this nonsense? Are daily mass shootings of innocents (including children) the price we are willing to pay to avoid gun laws and restrictions? Are we willing to pay this awful price to make sure that criminals, terrorists, and dangerous psychotics can buy a gun legally? Have we lost our damn minds?

We might not be able to prevent every single mass shooting, but we could be preventing many of them. Why don't we do it? We could prevent many of them with sensible gun laws -- laws that would not violate the Second Amendment of the Constitution, or prevent honest and law-abiding citizens from buying and possessing firearms. It is reprehensible that our elected officials choose not to do that.