Won't Republicans fight gun violence?

Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
·3 min read
Leaving flowers outside the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, Calif., where a shooter killed at least one person and injured five on May 15, 2022. Authorities said the shooter, a Chinese immigrant, targeted the church in an "isolated incident" because of frustration over political disagreements between China and Taiwan.
Leaving flowers outside the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, Calif., where a shooter killed at least one person and injured five on May 15, 2022. Authorities said the shooter, a Chinese immigrant, targeted the church in an "isolated incident" because of frustration over political disagreements between China and Taiwan.

The mood has become increasingly violent and frightening over the past few years, with inflammatory policies, language and attacks targeting immigrants and people of color coming from Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and many others.

It should be no surprise that hate crimes are at a 12-year high, according to the FBI, or that Attorney General Merrick Garland says the two most lethal motivations for violent domestic extremists are racial and ethnic.

Great Replacement Theory? Try language of death wielded by opportunistic right-wing figures

The suspected shooter in Buffalo on May 14, appears to be a stereotype of our age. He threatened to shoot up his school last year at age 17, went for a mental health evaluation and went home. Was there any follow-up? Did his parents know what he was up to? Was anyone paying attention? The assault-style rifle he used was legal but he modified it illegally and lied to get it in the first place.

A woman chalks a message on May 15, 2022, at a makeshift memorial outside the Tops Friendly Markets store where a gunman killed 10 people in Buffalo, N.Y.
A woman chalks a message on May 15, 2022, at a makeshift memorial outside the Tops Friendly Markets store where a gunman killed 10 people in Buffalo, N.Y.

Police say the shooter's motive was racial. Authorities are working to authenticate a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic document he allegedly wrote that refers to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory advanced by Carlson – that Democrats are plotting to replace the current electorate with "more obedient voters from the Third World."

This baseless claptrap is now accepted by 47% of the GOP and promoted by Republican Senate candidates, House members such as Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and the president of the Border Patrol union.

We need action: Our well-meaning hashtags won't stop racist mass shootings.

It is tempting to throw up our hands. I almost did in 2017, when I realized I had written at least 17 columns on guns in seven years and nothing had changed. But of course, like the millions of survivors, victims, families and others who care desperately about this scourge, I kept going, kept prodding, kept hoping.

How can you not? Why can’t America fix its gun problem? Why won’t it even try?

Let me amend that: Why won't most Republicans even try? And will voters ever punish them?

Former NAACP president: The Buffalo shooting should make the GOP change its 'Great Replacement Theory' rhetoric

I have never seen a more tragic congressional vote than the Senate's 54-46 defeat of a bipartisan bill tightening gun background checks. It was such a minimal step, tailored by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey to have broad appeal, yet it fell short of the 60 needed to end a filibuster.

That was in April 2013, just four months after the Sandy Hook elementary school rampage. Nearly 10 years later, what has Congress done? The House tries when Democrats are in control, then their bills die in the Senate. And while closing a few holes in the background check system would be helpful, there are more than 400 million guns in America, 98% of them owned by civilians – or 120 guns per 100 citizens.

We need a national intervention: limits on how many and what kinds of guns people can own and how and where they can carry them, licenses and training requirements, voluntary buybacks and then, yes, confiscating guns if necessary to enforce new federal laws.

More from Jill Lawrence:

►On gun control, there's nothing and everything left to say

►Would the Founders want our kids to die in school shootings like Santa Fe? I doubt it.

►Guns, abortion and COVID in America: Life, death and differences too stark to bridge

The prerequisites to even the most incremental progress are electing more Democrats and getting rid of the filibuster that enables a 41-senator minority to stop almost any bill in its tracks.

In Buffalo, we see the tragic intersection of vile rhetoric from political and media figures, a disturbed mind and gun "rights" advocates irrationally and immorally opposed to any restrictions or safeguards on what they seem to view as their absolute Second Amendment right to bear arms. All rights are regulated and some are much more important than that one – first and foremost, the right to stay alive.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Buffalo and California shootings -Republicans won't fix gun problem