It seems scarcely possible that in the most advanced country in the world yet another mass shooting has occurred. Once again innocent families are cast into despair and sorrow because a gunman, this time a Marine vet, decides for whatever reason that it would be good to take a gun and shoot up fellow citizens. He dies in the horror but so do a dozen others, including a first responder sheriff and several young students.
The question is asked again over and over, can this price be worth paying to support the notion that individual freedom should be measured by the right of citizens to own guns with little to no meaningful regulation and control? It is surely a priority for the agenda of the new Congress, yet it is difficult to see how anything will come of it, with the historic divisions in American society.
There is also a question which the President should put to himself. Is his rhetoric inflaming passions and giving licence by default to people who wish to make a personal statement by mass killing, which, like all rational citizens of the nation he leads, he deplores? Even the smallest thing is worth trying and might help and, as the President is constantly reminding the world, he is a very big thing.