Heroes and villains in the crusade against gun violence

Feb.14 will be a day of love for many and mourning for others. It will be Valentine’s Day but also the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. An expelled student armed with an AR-15-style  rifle, invaded the building and murdered 17 students and staff and wounded another 17 people. A day of love will forever be a day of loss for the grieving families there.

Late last year, the assailant, Nikolas Cruz, was sentenced to life in prison for his heinous crime as the families of the victims wept. Florida Governor and potential GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said he would propose a law that would allow a death penalty sentence in such cases without a unanimous jury decision, but he opposes legislation that would restrict the ownership and possession of these deadly weapons.

The future of our children is at grave risk. We associate weapons of mass destruction with the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal, but they lurk as threats in our nation’s schools.

The carnage in schools has continued unabated since the Parkland murders. Earlier this year in Virginia, a six-year-old boy somehow got ahold of a gum, brought it to school in his backpack and shot his teacher. The teacher survived but peace of mind for the students and their families didn’t. Last year, a shooter with an automatic weapon killed 19 children and two adults at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school.

The stats on mass murders in the United States are staggering and depressing. In the first three weeks of 2023 alone, there were 39 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Last month, just days apart, there were two mass killings in California that claimed 18 lives.

The body count mounts while Congress fails to act to stop the slaughter. Last year more than 44,000 Americans reportedly died due to gun violence and there were 647 mass shootings. Thousands of Americans lose their lives and while Democrats continue to push for legislation aimed at curbing gun violence, the lack of action from many Republicans in Congress suggests they couldn’t care less. How many more Americans will die before Congress acts?

The heroes and villains in the crusade against gun violence are easy to identify.

The heroes include a young man, Brandon Tsay, in Monterey, California in and a 64-year-old subway mechanic, Robert Cunningham, in a Washington, D.C. subway station. They disabled active shooters and saved the lives of countless other people. Tsay’s heroics earned him attendance and recognition at the State of the Union. Cunningham should have been there too, but the Metro employee died in his valiant effort to save the lives of potential victims.

The villains of this tragic tale are just as obvious as the heroes. They are the shooters who take lives without mercy — and those in power who do nothing about it.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, some Republicans wear assault weapon replica pins. Even worse, they block actions to ban the weapons that will cost the lives of so many more people.

GOP intransigence flies in the face public appetite for efforts to curb gun violence. A majority of voters (56 percent) in last November’s midterm elections supported stricter gun laws. And those voters who cared enough about the carnage supported Democratic House candidates by a three-to-one margin.Republican lawmakers apparently won’t even tolerate the very basic step to mandate a universal background step for gun buyers, which is wildly popular.

Even if Republicans confronted the devastation of gun violence, chances are the conservative majority on the Supreme Court would nullify the action. In 2021, the high court overturned a New York state law that would have banned the possession of unlicensed firearms inside or outside homes. Another judicial test could come now that Illinois passed sweeping legislation that would ban the possession of deadly assault weapons.

Supreme Court conservatives pride themselves on being “originalists,” which means they claim to interpret the meaning of the Constitution in terms of the original intent of the Founding Fathers. Before the majority rules against attempts to stop gun violence, they should take a closer look at the Second Amendment, which states, “a well-regulated militia being necessary to a security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The original meaning of the founders is crystal clear except to the conservative ideologues on the court. Anyone who wants to shoot a combat weapon should take the opportunity to join their local well-regulated militia, the state national guard because there’s no place for these instruments of death in our neighborhoods, streets or schools.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of his weekly aggressively progressive podcast, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon. Follow him on Twitter at @BradBannon.

This piece has been updated.