When 8 people were killed by a muslim in a truck, Trump immediately decided that action must be taken. We must have laws to prevent muslims from entering the country. But Trump and his Republican friends in Congress, did not want to take action after 59 people were killed in Las Vegas (and hundreds more wounded).
Now we have another mass shooting. This time 26 lives were taken, including 14 children) in a church in South Texas. But the shooter was white and christian (like the Las Vegas shooter), so once again we get nothing but "thoughts and prayers" from Trump and the Republicans -- no action at all.
This should not surprise us. When a couple of dozen 6 and 7 year-olds were murdered in Newtown, and the Republicans did NOTHING, we should have realized that nothing could spur the GOP into taking action to curb the epidemic of gun deaths in this country (and it is an epidemic -- with 307 mass shootings being done in the last 310 days, 12,000 gun murders each year, and over 33,000 gun deaths when accidents and suicides are included). Trump and the GOP have decided that a few thousand people dying each year is an acceptable price to pay to protect the profits of gun manufacturers (and to protect their own campaign donations from the NRA).
Making the matter even worse is Trump's statement that this latest shooting was not a gun issue, but was a mental health issue -- this from the president who signed a bill last February, passed by the Republicans in Congress, that allowed the mentally ill to purchase guns.
It is past the time for excuses (and for thoughts and prayers). It is time for action to be taken. At the very least, we need to:
* Make sure no gun is sold in this country without a thorough background check (including sales from one individual to another).
* Make sure all states provide adequate information for these background checks.
* Include those checks to ban purchases by those convicted of any felony, those on a terrorist watch list, those who are dangerously mentally ill, and those convicted of any kind of domestic abuse.
* Ban the sale and possession of assault rifles.
* Ban the possession and sale of ammo clips that hold more than 10 rounds.
This won't completely eliminate killings by guns, but it would drastically reduce them. And none of those actions would violate the Constitution's Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to buy and possess a firearm. If nothing is done, then we are all complicit in the future gun deaths (because we did not force Congress to act).
