Here’s the real problem, as I see it. It is ridiculously easy to kill someone with a gun. Something that is, by nature, horribly hard to accomplish, is made, with a sophisticated modern weapon, a snap. With a gun, a moment of anger (think road rage) or a perceived slight and the irrevocable can happen. And then there is no room for second thoughts, no way to stop one’s self, no way to let a moment of sanity creep in, no ‘oops.’ And now look how easy it is to kill a lot of people in mere willful instants. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, they say. Yeah, but guns make it a lot easier, and surely allow many who might not ordinarily do the deed, to pull the trigger. A simple act, no exertion, not even much thought needed.
States have trouble doing it by injection, by electrocution…that’s probably because they’re looking for a humane way to do it…an oxymoron if ever there was one, humane execution. Up until the Civil War, even warfare was less bloody. But the easier the weapons could shoot, the deadlier the war.
When Donald Trump says that insane people are going to slip through the cracks, and that they’re always going to be around, he is dismissing how easy it is for them to obtain guns, and then how easy it is to kill with them.
So yes, let’s have better background checks, let’s screen more for mental illness. Let’s, as gun right supporter Lanny Steitz says in his letters, enforce the laws that are already on the books. You want to try regulating ammunition? Go ahead. Are the provisions of the SAFE act being enforced? Do we have the assault weapon registry? Can we find a way to differentiate between responsible people and those who would use a weapon to kill?
With each massacre, the ease of killing with modern weapons becomes more apparent. With each one, the horror grows, the frustration increases. Will we do more nothing?
Join the family! 
