Same old killings, and more of the same old talk | Editorial

Gun Rights

Tuesday was yet another day that left a good number of shaken Chico residents wondering “What in the world is going on here?”

A Code Red shut down four Chico Unified School District locations as well as Chico State after someone reported seeing a man with a gun on a campus. Chico Police quickly responded and discovered the report was unfounded; the initial shock had barely worn off before reports came in of a stabbing with “multiple” victims at a business on East Avenue. Two people, one of them a juvenile, were arrested in that case — fortunately, nobody was killed.

All in all, not a good day in our town — but not nearly as awful of a day as has been experienced elsewhere in the state this past week.

Two mass shootings within a 48-hour period left 18 people dead. First, 11 people were shot to death in a Los Angeles-area dance hall Saturday night, and on Monday, seven people were killed in an attack on farm workers in Half Moon Bay.

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In both cases, the alleged killers — Huu Can Tran, 72, and Chunli Zhao, 66 — used a semi-automatic pistol. The age of the alleged shooters was also a twist, as were the victims — the dance hall was a place normally frequented by older Asian patrons, while the farm workers were of a mix of Asian and Hispanic heritage, with all but two of those victims ranging in age from 50 to 74.

So hatred, and evil, remain as colorblind as ever, knowing no limit in terms of the race or age of the victims.

What remains predictable is the immediate reaction of politicians. Many liberals again raced to the microphones to blame Republicans and the National Rifle Association, while many conservatives again blamed liberals for “soft on crime” laws and for not adequately enforcing laws already on the books.

This time around, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-California) said “Members of Congress shouldn’t be in office if they can’t stand up to the gun industry. Innocent lives matter more than the gun industry and its profits.” In other words, according to Schiff, the main reason we can’t pass tougher gun laws is because so many Republicans are afraid of losing hefty donations from the NRA.

And yet, Democrats had control of both chambers of Congress, and the presidency, for a two-year period that ended just three weeks ago. If they really wanted to pass stronger gun laws, what was stopping them?

Well, there’s the 60-vote cloture rule in the Senate. But Democrats (and Republicans) have gone “nuclear” before to end to the archaic filibuster rule — a rule that made more sense when elected officials were actually required to stand up and filibuster. Both times were to overcome opposition to judicial appointments. But, apparently, ending those rules to address gun control is something Democrats just couldn’t agree to do. So, instead, they keep blaming Republicans, who will now control the House for the next two years.

Meanwhile, you can always count on some Republicans to come up with tone-deaf partisan comments at times like this.

Hours after one of America’s numerous mass shootings in 2021, Sen. John Kennedy downplayed the problem by noting that “we have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that too … the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers.” And just last year, Republican Rep. and Senate candidate Billy Long of Missouri partially blamed the country’s rise in gun violence on … abortion. “I go back to abortion, when we decided it was OK to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks,” he said.

In other words, there are a lot of problems at play here, but access to guns apparently isn’t one of them.

We could go on, but you’ve heard it all before, and sadly will probably hear it all again. Barring any seismic shift in our laws or the willingness of states to enforce them, or a major shift in the attitude of those who view firearms as a quick and appropriate means of settling disputes, we remain stuck in a seemingly never-ending cycle of death and finger-pointing, while sick, evil people continue to get their hands on awful weapons and kill innocent men and women and boys and girls.

Meaningful leadership is in sadly short supply these days, but at least there’s one thing we can continue to count on: Political posturing, and non-productive talk.

Cue the outrage.

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