Columns

On March 16, eight people were killed, including six Asian-Americans, at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area. The shooter purchased the handgun legally the same day as the shootings. On March 22, ten people were killed, including one police officer, at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. The shooter used an assault weapon he purchased less than a week earlier. On March 28, a gunman killed his parents, two others at a convenience store, and then himself near Baltimore. On March 31, four people, including a child, were killed at an office complex in Orange, California.  

These attacks were the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth mass shootings in 2021 of four or more dead, not including the shooter. That's a record Americans should be ashamed of. And we are only in the fourth month of 2021.  

Unfortunately, gun violence has become as American as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. I fear that after all the sound and fury is over, the cycle of killings, hand wringing, and mourning will continue ad infinitum.  

Anyone for federal gun control legislation starting with the two House-passed bills to require expanded background checks for gun buyers and would give authorities 10 business days for federal background checks to be completed before a gun sale can be licensed.  

In addition, Congress should enact a ban on assault weapons. The Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons—precisely because they are meant for the battlefield and are not “in common use at the time for lawful purposes.” ( District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 624-25, 627-28 (2008). In other words, banning assault weapons does not contravene the Second Amendment.