Yesterday (June 1st), there was another mass shooting. This one was in a Tulsa hospital. Five people died (including the shooter) and others were wounded.
The Tulsa mass shooting was the 20th mass shooting in the United States since the Uvalde massacre on May 24th. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 233 mass shootings in the United States in the first 152 days of the year. That's an average of 1.53 mass shootings for every day of this year.
In addition, there have been 18,187 deaths due to gun violence (that about 119.65 gun-related deaths for every day).
It seems obvious that gun violence (and mass shootings) are out-of-control in this country. In a country with about 330 million people, there are more than 400 million guns -- and more are being sold every day.
Republicans wants to blame everything but the proliferation of guns and the ability of anyone to get a gun. But the United States is the only country with 1.2 guns for every man, woman, and child -- and it's the only developed nation with this kind of gun violence.
Republicans want to blame mental illness for the shootings. But the U.S. doesn't have more mentally ill people than other developed nations. It is, however, the only nation that makes it easy for those people to arm themselves with any kind of gun they want, and as much ammunition as they want.
Between 80% and 90% of Americans want anyone buying or receiving a gun to have to pass a background check. Unfortunately, the U.S. background check law is full of holes, and it's easy to bypass the background check and get a gun.
That should be immediately fixed. And any politician refusing to fix the background check law should be voted out of office, regardless of their political party.
The gun used in the Tulsa shooting was an assault-style rifle. The gun used in Uvalde was the same -- and the gun used in nearly every mass shooting is the same. It is a rifle that has only one purpose -- to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible. There is no legitimate reason for civilians to own this weapon of war.
About 67% of the population would support banning these assault-style rifles. That is constitutional, and has been done in the past. It should be done again.
It is time to make a choice. Do we want to save lives, or do we want to allow criminals, terrorists, and other dangerous people to buy any weapon they want (including assault-style rifles)?
Closing the holes in the background check law and banning the sale of assault-style rifles would not keep any honest and law-abiding citizen from buying or possessing a gun. Refusing to do so though, will insure that many more lives are unnecessarily lost.
