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After a year where public mass shootings hit a historic low due to COVID-19, America has been rocked by two in the past month, leaving many — once again — with a feeling of helplessness. On March 16, a gunman in Atlanta, Georgia murdered eight people in massage spas, six of the victims were Asian.

On Monday, a gunman in Boulder, Colorado murdered ten people in a supermarket.

After a year out of the headlines, the topic of gun control has made it to the forefront once again. The maddening thing is even though the vast majority of Americans support common-sense gun control laws, nothing ever gets past Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

There are two significant gun-control policies that enjoy bipartisan support, the assault weapons ban and universal background checks.


A 2019 poll reported by Politico found that 70% of Americans support an assault weapons ban, including 86% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans. The same year, a National Public Radio (NPR), PBS Newshour, and Maris College poll found that 83% of Americans believe Congress should pass legislation that requires background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales.

Pew Research found that Americans on both sides of the political divide overwhelmingly support universal background checks. Ninety-three percent of Democrats and 82% of Republicans said they favored, "making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks."


via Maryland GovPics

One of the biggest reasons why Republicans refuse to pass any gun-control legislation is a paralyzing fear of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Many Republican legislators are afraid that a negative grade from the organization will immediately end their careers.

The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington and spends money with laser-like precision, elevating those who support gun rights and taking down those who favor gun control.

That means it's nearly impossible to get a Republican to support gun safety laws, even though only 1.5% of Americans are members of the NRA and 70% don't even own a gun.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 that killed 26 people, including 20 children and school employees, President Barack Obama got little support from Senate Republicans to pass a gun control bill supported by 90% of Americans. "It came down to politics—the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. [Congress members] worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment," Obama said in a speech afterward.

Last Friday, after the Atlanta shooting, president Joe Biden spoke out about the need for Congress to take action this time.

"I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save the lives in the future, and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act," Biden said.

On Tuesday, Biden called for the Senate to "immediately pass" two bills the House recently approved that change background check laws.

Biden has a long record of supporting gun-control measures. In 1993, he helped pass the Brady Bill which first established the background check and waiting period requirements. In 1994, he wrote a controversial crime bill that included a 10-year ban on assault weapons.

The problem Biden faces is that passing common-sense gun legislation would need 60 votes to make it through the Senate, so 10 Republicans would have to flip. However, some lawmakers believe that the current moment gives Democrats one of the best chances they have at getting something done because the NRA has been weakened over the past few years.

The NRA declared bankruptcy earlier this year and in 2018 it was outspent by gun-control groups for the first time ever.

"I think the implosion of the NRA, the growing support among the American people and the inevitability of increased support gives us an opportunity we haven't had before," Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said earlier this month. He added: "What's changed is we now have a president who can put pressure on our colleagues."

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Obama's emotional message on gun violence is worth hearing over and over again.

"Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well."

President Obama just revealed a series of executive actions to address gun violence.

After trying and failing to get a gun safety bill through Congress in 2013, shortly after the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, he's making his last stand on the issue.


Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

With family members of shooting victims at his side, the president delivered an emotional address stating his case for moving forward on a plan without Congress:

"Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. ... Our right to worship freely and safely — that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina. And that was denied Jews in Kansas City, and that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill and Sikhs in Oak Creek.
...
Our right to peaceful assembly, that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette. Our inalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high- schoolers in Columbine, and from first-graders in Newtown."

The executive actions have been described as Obama's boldest move on the issue so far.

The measures include a mandate for anyone who sells guns (not just firearm retailers) to get a license and run background checks, investments in improved gun safety technology, authorization to hire more federal agents to process background checks and enforce gun laws, and funding increases for mental health care.

It all sounds so ... reasonable. Sure, politically speaking, it may be fair to call it "bold," but if we're being honest, that's kinda sad.

Addressing gun violence should never have been a last-ditch effort.

Before the plan was even unveiled, gun rights advocates were threatening to challenge the plan in court. Republican presidential candidates have vowed to reverse the measures if they're voted into office. (Something to keep in mind in November.)

Jeb Bush speaks at an NRA rally. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

These are executive actions, not an ironclad piece of approved legislation, so that iffiness just comes with the territory.

But the president has been periodically forced into a corner, first when Congress rejected a bill containing provisions similar to those in this proposal after the Newtown massacre, then with each failure to act after the more than 1,000 mass shootings since.

The executive actions will do a lot of important things, but they won't solve the problem.

Studies have shown that gun ownership is a powerful predictor of gun homicide rates. And the United States will continue to have an unmatched volume of guns in homes and on the streets.

Photo by Dugan Ashley/Wikimedia Commons (altered).

If nothing else, however, the president is forcing the conversation and, hopefully, getting more voters to snap out of their dazes and respond with the passion and resolve we see in the NRA and other trigger-happy lobbies.

"All of us need to demand that Congress be brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby's lies. ... We need voters who want safer gun laws, and who are disappointed in leaders who stand in their way to remember come election time." — President Obama

Beating gun violence will require a huge reassessment of values. And it really does come down to one simple question:

Is it worth protecting one right, vague and dated as it may be, if it costs shooting victims so many others?

Watch President Obama's tearful address:

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Reigning NBA MVP Steph Curry has an adorable 3-year-old daughter named Riley.

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images.


He takes her everywhere he goes.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.

She's even been known to take over a press conference or two.

GIF via Ziba Lubaj/YouTube.

Like any father, the thought of losing his daughter to a sudden, tragic act of violence is too terrible for Curry to contemplate.

With Riley in mind, Curry — and several of his NBA colleagues — made a video calling for an end to the unacceptable plague of gun deaths in America.

GIFs by Everytown for Gun Safety/YouTube.

The fear of losing a child to gun violence cuts across the generations.

Later in the video, the Clippers' Chris Paul talks about growing up with the fear of becoming a statistic.

The Knicks' Carmelo Anthony is even blunter.


While tragedies like San Bernardino and Sandy Hook grab the headlines — for good reason — this problem goes far beyond high-profile mass shootings.

In 2011, gun violence claimed the lives of over 30,000 Americans. A Bloomberg analysis estimates that more people will be killed by guns in 2015 than in car crashes.

Ending gun violence is often a controversial subject — but it doesn't have to be.

A makeshift memorial for the victims of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooting. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

Any discussion of placing new restrictions or conditions on gun ownership tends to devolve into a shouting match between well-meaning people on both sides. It tends to get very emotional, as issues of life and death often do.

The good news is, we all want the same thing: fewer people killed in shootings.

The better news is, we mostly agree on the first steps toward getting there. An overwhelming majority of Americans support background checks for gun purchases — including a majority of NRA members. A similarly vast majority is in favor of closing the gun-show loophole, which allows firearm sales by private dealers without background checks.

These are common-sense reforms we can all get behind.

Because regardless of where you stand on the issue, the Bulls' Joakim Noah hits the nail on the head.

Watch the NBA stars — as well as ordinary Americans whose lives have been upended by gun violence — get real about what it's going to take below.

If you watched the news Wednesday or the following morning, you heard of yet another mass shooting.

This one in San Bernardino, California.


Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images News.

It was the 1,042nd mass shooting since Sandy Hook in December 2012.

Not again, you think, as you scour the Internet for details.

You come across a report with "live updates" like this one from the LA Times. 14 people have died, 17 are injured. Police have killed two suspects, a man and a woman, and another one is in custody.

You and millions of others turn to Google, where you type in the location of this shooting. You tweet or update Facebook about your rage, your frustration that this has happened again, your despair that politicians will still do nothing to protect you or anyone else from the next mass shooting. Because there will be more. The pattern will repeat itself. We know this. We've seen this.

Then you probably forget about it for a bit. Until news about the next mass shooting breaks.

A candlelight vigil after the WDBJ shooting in Roanoke, Virginia. Photo by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.

According to Google Trends, interest in a mass shooting peaks on the day of or the day after, and then almost immediately drops off the day after that.

This is what happened with the WDBJ shooting in Roanoke, where Vester Flanagan shot and killed Alison Parker and Adam Ward on Aug. 26, 2015 during a live report.

U.S.-specific search interest for "WDBJ shooting" peaked on Aug. 26 (represented on the chart by the number 100), but then quickly dropped off on Aug. 27.

This was the day that major outlets like the New York Times reported on one of the victim's fathers calling for gun control.

During the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where nine people were killed just a few months ago, U.S. search interest peaked the day after the shooting on Oct. 2, then rapidly faded by Oct. 3, just one day later.

And if two is a coincidence, three is a pattern — the same search behavior can be seen of the Isla Vista shooting, where Elliot Rodger killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara on May 23, 2014.

It's not just these three. It repeats when you look up the trends for the mass shootings in Marysville, Washington; Charleston, South Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee, and others.

We care about these tragedies. We care about gun control. Why do we lose interest so fast?

Maybe because we get burnt out quickly on the tragic details. Maybe a few days in, we're being bombarded by information and have less need to seek it out.

Maybe there's nothing to do but get angry for one day — a few at the most — and then move on.

Maybe after so much death and so little being done about it, we feel there's no hope of any meaningful gun control legislation passing Congress, of any laws or initiatives addressing related issues like the misogyny behind Rodgers' attack, or the anti-abortion rhetoric that motivated last week's Planned Parenthood shooting.

If there were a time to enact gun control, you'd think that the tragic loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, where 20 children and their teachers were gunned down almost three years ago, would have been it.


There were three-fifths as many "Sandy Hook" searches from Jan. 13-19, 2013, when President Barack Obama announced a four-point legislative plan to prevent gun violence. Yet by April 14-20, 2013, we had moved on, and the proposed legislation failed to pass, even in a Democratic-controlled Senate.

We want solutions, but have we somehow failed to demonstrate significant, lasting outrage over them?

Maybe we know Congress won't stand up to a powerful gun lobby on behalf of their constituents, as CNN reported after the Senate defeat.

But if we don't search, and if we don't speak out beyond a day after a mass shooting, when solutions are so obvious and have been enacted successfully in every other developed country in the world, then it's on us when nothing changes.

A mere three days after the San Bernardino shooting, the search pattern is already following the trend of the shootings that came before it.

The day after Wednesday's shooting in San Bernardino, a Senate amendment expanding background checks at gun shows and for online purchases — and one that would ban people on the terrorism watch list from purchasing guns — were rejected.

By that day, search interest in the shooting dropped to almost zero.

If we want things to change, we can't let our attention waver. Writer Nicole Silverberg put together a guide on how to contact your elected officials, along with a sample email and phone scripts and tips from Everytown for Gun Safety.

Let's break this cycle. It may seem difficult now, but we have the anger, and we have the tools. Let's use them to make things change for the better.