The NRA and the Republican Party Are Responsible for This Gun Violence

Blaming the NRA and the GOP for our mass-shooting gun violence isn't hyperbole. It's fact, and it's an undeniable shame.

The AR-15. Who in you neighborhood should have
one of these? Everyone? No one? Why anyone?

It's not complicated: The NRA and the Republican Party are the leading forces in America that prevent this country from enacting effective -- and badly needed -- gun control. After the horrifying Orlando shooting, not to mention the 998 mass shootings since the Sandy Hook shooting of two dozen young students and teachers that one would have though had to lead to real reform but didn't, we wonder if our country is lost to gun violence forever.

What could possibly give us hope? That the horror of Orlando will be some special catalyst for change?

The answer, I suspect, will be, especially in an election year, nothing. Nothing. Think about that, but only for a moment or, at best, for the length of whatever news cycle is generated by this terrifying event. What do you think? A week? Two weeks? Enough to bury the dead and figure out that, yes, one more crazed, hate-filled young male has purchased machines of utter and final death and taken them into some ordinary place and created extraordinary tragedy beyond all comprehension?

And to this the NRA and the Republican Party will double and redouble their efforts to preserve for Americans the right to reenact this madness over and over again.

And we Americans, we will accept this?

Probably, and that is heartbreaking.