No More Shootings That Follow the Rules

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/opinion/vegas-shooting-gun-control-paddock.html

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We live in a country where so long as you follow the rules, you have relatively unfettered access to weapons capable of mass devastation. This week, we can see once again the carnage the rules have made possible. The number of victims of the terrorism in Las Vegas this week is staggering — at least 59 dead and more than 500 injured.

Stephen Paddock, the gunman, bought some weapons from a store called Guns & Guitars in a strip mall in Mesquite, Nev., where he lived. The general manager of the store released a statement saying, “All necessary background checks and procedures were followed.”

He bought other weapons from a place called New Frontier Armory in North Las Vegas, and someone with that store said, “All state and federal laws were followed, and an F.B.I. background check took place and was passed by the buyer.”

This is a formal way of saying, “My hands are clean.”

So far, the police have found 42 guns in the killer’s hotel room and home. Twenty-three of those guns were found in his hotel room. Mr. Paddock’s brother Eric asked what so many of us want to know: Where did he get those weapons?

It’s time to talk about gun control. It has long been time to talk about gun control. Many politicians say it is too soon, but it was time to talk about gun control on Monday, and it was also time to talk about gun control after Sandy Hook, Columbine, Orlando and on and on.

“Vegas Strong” is the rallying cry after this mass shooting. How many more cities will need to demonstrate their strength before our elected leaders show their strength?

Like many others in the United States, I gave up hope of seeing any kind of effective gun regulation in this country after the murder of 20 children and six teachers and other workers at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. But each time there is another mass shooting, I wonder if there is a tipping point, if there is, indeed, a tragedy grotesque enough for the callous politicians who are willing to take money from the National Rifle Association while offering nothing more than their thoughts and prayers to victims.

On Monday morning, Matt Bevin, governor of Kentucky, said that “you can’t regulate evil” and encouraged people not to be opportunists, seizing on tragedy for more gun laws. That is nonsense.

We can regulate the weapons that terrorists and criminals use to commit acts of evil. This is a country where we regulate almost everything for the sake of the greater good. We regulate the speed limit to protect motorists and pedestrians. We regulate access to pharmaceuticals to protect people from addiction and the consequences thereof. We regulate food preparation, alcohol and tobacco, how crops and animals are raised, medical practices, pet adoption. At the airport, we perform elaborate acts of security theater including removing our shoes because just once a terrorist tried to hide a bomb in his shoe.

Regulation does not guarantee safety. But with regulation, we are far better off than if we did not govern ourselves with a modicum of common sense and responsibility. We need to better regulate guns and who has access to them. We need to decide, once and for all, that the Second Amendment matters but it does not mean that ordinary people should potentially have access to automatic weapons or devices that allow semiautomatic weapons to fire more rapidly. We need to take the stand that the police and the military are the only people who need that kind of firepower.

It would be easy to say there are no words, but that isn’t true. There are plenty of words that can be said in the wake of the terrorist attack in Las Vegas. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is exhausting, demoralizing, and utterly heartbreaking to have to write such words yet again, while knowing that these words will not do anything to change this country’s stance on gun control. It is exhausting, demoralizing and heartbreaking to think of all the families and friends who are now mourning loved ones who were murdered in such a brutal, senseless way.

The people who died and were injured this week in Las Vegas just wanted to enjoy some music from the delectable Jason Aldean in the warm night and open air. They should have as much a right to survive that simple pleasure as the right to bear arms.

It is hard to understand, in this moment, how some Americans are more outraged by N.F.L. players exercising their First Amendment right to free expression by kneeling to protest police brutality and the fragility of black life than they are by mass shootings and the consistently shocking loss of life each time an angry man with a gun pulls the trigger. These are Americans who treat the Constitution as a malleable document they can shape to suit their political interests. These are Americans who are very selective about the rules they want to follow.

We need to make a stand for gun control now. We need to say we will not tolerate such incredible loss of life for one day more. If we cannot do this, we do not deserve an anthem, let alone the right to stand for one.