There is a terrible sadness to the murders over the weekend in Orlando. It does not matter that the killing of at least 49 people in a LGBT nightclub can be attributed to the horror of the Islamic State.
Overriding the tragedy is the knowledge we all share: This is not the end; our tempered words of sympathy, condolences and memorials will not solve anything; this murderous slaughter will go on because the men and women elected to protect us will not stop it. They will not control guns.
Democratic Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, who represents a district near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 schoolchildren and six staff members were killed in 2012, agonized in a series of tweets over the inability of Congress to control gun violence.
“I will not attend one more ‘Moment of Silence’ on the Floor. Our silence does not honor the victims, it mocks them.
“The Moments of Silence in the House have become an abomination. God will ask you, ‘How did you keep my children safe’? Silence.
“God will ask you why you did not defer to the will of the people as children poured out their blood. And we will answer with silence,” Himes said.
The Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar at Oxford is an elder in his Presbyterian church, according to the online blog ThinkProgress.
“Thoughts and prayers are important but they don’t stop the carnage in our streets and they let you off too easy,” Himes said. “Offer your thoughts and prayers, and then show up on the damn floor and pass a bill that most Americans accept and that will save a lot of lives.”
Controlling ownership of firearms in America is not a debate point or a political wedge issue. It is becoming a daily matter of life or death.
The Gun Violence Archive reports that excluding death by suicide, 13,286 people were killed in America by firearms last year.
There were 64 school shootings. There were 372 mass shootings, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, which defines a mass shooting as a single shooting incident that kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant.
In Hawaii, already a state with fairly strict gun-control laws, the Legislature passed one new bill to regulate gun control this year and blinked when given the chance to pass an additional, stronger bill.
The one now awaiting approval by Gov David Ige would provide for local gun owners to be included in a FBI database that reports if the person is arrested in another jurisdiction.
House Bill 1813 was passed the state House and died in the Senate. It would have denied access to a firearm to anyone on the Terrorist Screening Database.
It was supported by both the state attorney general and the Honolulu chief of police, but didn’t even get a Senate vote.
The question politicians have to answer is: If the FBI has “reasonable suspicion that they are known or suspected terrorists,” doesn’t it make sense that the person also is too dangerous to be allowed to buy a firearm?
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
