Will we accept the Las Vegas shooting as the new normal?

Here are some excerpts from an important op-ed essay by former Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY), published in the New York Times, October 3, 2017.   It's titled "Nothing Will Change After the Las Vegas Shooting."

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"In the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in our nation's history, perhaps the most asked question by Americans is, "Will anything change?"  The simple answer is no.   The more vital question is, "Why not?"

"Congress is already doing what it sees as its part.  Flags have been lowered, thoughts and prayers tweeted, and sometime this week it will perform the latest episode in the longest-running drama on C-Span:  the moment of silence.  It's how they responded to other mass shootings . . . .  In my 16 years in Congress, [there have been] 52 mass killings.  Fewer lessons about Congress were starker than the ones I learned about why, after each one, nothing happened. . . . 

"[After Sandy Hook Elementary School] I was confident that at the very least we'd expand background checks. . . . My confidence ebbed when I heard my colleagues turn this into a debate over the rights of gun owners instead of the right to life of children . . . .  [and when speaking privately they said] "any vote for gun safety would lower their N.R.A. scores, making them casualties in the next election.

"'Finally, we will do something,' I thought after the June 2016 mass shooting in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub. . . .  [W]e heard that several colleagues had . . . started a sit-in to force the House to address gun violence. . . .  We held the floor for 24 hours . . . a moment [that] I thought . . . could no longer be ignored.  I was right.  Congress did act.  It declared that fines would be slapped on House members who broadcast audio or video from the House floor. . . . [i.e., a penalty for those who tried to force the House to act by filming the sit-in on their cell phones.].

" . . . Democrats would [ritualistically] offer amendments to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms.  A no-brainer, I thought.  If you're too dangerous to board a plane, you're too dangerous to buy an assault weapon, a common-sense position shared by over 80 percent of Americans. . . .[but the Republican chairman of the committee argued against it, saying that] "in American, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. . . .  The amendment failed.

"So did our attempts to rescind the infamous Dickey Amendment, which prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from even researching the relationship between gun violence and public health.   [It] was so absurd that it was ultimately opposed by its own sponsor . . .  Still we failed.

"And finally, there are those moments when members ourselves became victims.  Gabby Giffords in Tucson;  Steve Scalise at the congressional baseball game.   Even the proximity of bullets resulted in shock -- and inaction.

"Why?   Three reasons.

"First, just like everything else in Washington, the gun lobby has become more polarized. . . .  The gun lobby is in a race to see who can become more brazen, more extreme.

"Second, congressional redistricting has pulled Republicans so far to the right that anything less than total subservience to the gun lobby is viewed as support for gun confiscation.  The gun lobby score is a litmus test with zero margin for error.

"Third, the problem is you, the reader.  You've become inoculated.   You'll read this essay and others like it, and turn the page or click another link.  You'll watch or listen to the news and shake your head, then flip to another channel or another app.  This horrific event will recede into our collective memory.

"That's what the gun lobbyists are counting on.   They want you to forget.  To accept the deaths of at least 58 children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends as the new normal.  To turn this page with one hand, and use the other hand to vote for members of Congress who will rise in another moment of silence this week.  And next week.  And the foreseeable future."

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I lose hope a little bit more when good people in Congress, like Steve Israel, decide not to run again -- as he did last year.   That means that we have to be more active -- more supportive of the good ones who are there and more involved in choosing the new ones to replace the Israels, who've served their time and done their best.

We have a choice right now to support the Democrat running in our neighbor state of Alabama.  Doug Jones is the only hope to prevent twice-removed-from-office Judge Roy Moore from being Alabama's new senator.    Riding in to one of his rallies on his horse, he pulled out a handgun and waved it around to make sure the crowd knows where he stands on gun rights.  Let's help Alabama send Doug Jones to Washington instead.

Ralph