Daily Gun Violence Cannot Become the New Normal

Another week and another mass shooting spree killing innocent Americans simply going about their daily lives.  The irony is that across America every week more people die due to gun violence than all of those killed  or wounded in the Paris terror attack, yet no meaningful changes is made to America's insane gun laws that facilitate such carnage.  No other developed nation in the world sees such routine deaths from gun violence.  Yet, what do we get from Republicans who are complete political prostitutes to the NRA and gun nuts?  Platitudes about "praying for" and "thinking about" those needlessly killed due to political cowardice and a refusal to get assault rifles and other weapons off the street that have but one purpose: killing as many as possible in a short period of time.  Were one of my friends or family members the victim of such violence, I would take such inane statements as the highest insult.  The Los Angeles Times is reporting that two of the guns used in yesterday's slaughter in  San Bernardino, California, were legally purchased.  Here are highlights: 

Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said officials had "successfully traced" the four guns recovered in connection with the San Bernardino shooting and determined that two of the weapons were purchased legally.

The guns were bought by an individual associated with the investigation, Davis said but declined to name the person.

"Agents continue to investigate leads concerning the two additional firearms," Davis said.

Police officials said that two suspects, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, were armed with two assault rifles and two semiautomatic handguns.

The New York Times quotes President Obama as to what needs to be done:

“We should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,” he said in a previously scheduled interview with CBS News. He added, “The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there’s some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently.”

The Times also has this frightening data:

More than one a day.  That is how often, on average, shootings that left four or more people wounded or dead occurred in the United States this year, according to compilations of episodes derived from news reports.

Including the worst mass shooting of the year, which unfolded horrifically on Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif., a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year, many of which occurred on streets or in public settings, the databases indicate.

Regardless of the shooters' motivation, if automatic weapons were off of the streets and not easily obtainable, these events would be far less frequent.  As for statements about God, etc., they are nothing more that abject idiocy and are utterly meaningless.