If I hear one more feckless politician express sympathy for gun victims after he/she voted against sensible gun regulation, I am going to barf. Take the recent hand-wringing by Maine’s U.S. Senator, Susan Collins. After the Lewiston, Maine slaughter, she had the colossal nerve to cry crocodile tears, despite her record of voting against renewing the assault weapon ban and against the ban of high capacity bullet rounds which expedites the time it takes to kill people.

Make no mistake about it: This is not a hunting issue, since most dye in the wool hunters think more highly of their prey than to riddle the deer with bullets in a blink of an eye. Capitulating on the above reforms is solely a matter of political expediency by waiving the white flag before the gun lobby.

Ms. Collins and her ilk should have the good sense to shut-up after such a tragedy. It is precisely people like her who make it easier to purchase an AR-15 than cold medicine.

Here we are in 2023 with another tragic milestone of more than 500 mass shootings for the third straight year in the United States. Just five years ago, this country had not exceeded 500 mass shootings in a single year. So far in 2023, more than 15,000 lives have been loss to gun violence, including more than 240 children under 12 and more than 1,000 teenagers, ages 12 to 17. School shootings are on the rise, with 236 incidents.

Apparently, far too few people consider it weird that there are 120 guns for every 100 Americans. No other nation has more firearms than people. Yet despite evidence to the contrary, at least a third of Americans believe that gun ownership leads to reduced crime.

Analysts have suggested that Americans balk at the word “control,” so gun control should NOT be a description for those efforts to carve narrow and temporary laws to withhold guns from violent people. It should be beyond debate for a process where a court can temporarily denude a violent or mentally ill person of his/her gun, following a due process hearing buttressed by the sound medical evaluation with a follow-up review.

Why aren’t people shocked that the “innocent” folk have to be in lock-down and children out of school while a menace torments a community?  Have we gotten so used to police in schools, cameras, practice drills, etc. that we nonchalantly accept this process as inevitable rather than look at viable alternatives to stop the carnage? Australia has had a significant drop in gun violence with steps that at least should be aired and debated here.

Worst of all, is how glib the citizens of the “world of the free” have acquiesced into being locked up themselves as mass shootings continue unabated, because there is no cogent system in place to deter the wrong people being armed to the teeth. Grandpa and Grannie and Moms and Dads have accepted that their child should have the repeated stress of practicing for mass shootings at school because there is nothing that they could do. Soon, it will be acceptable to bar little Johnnie from bowling or going to dinner with his parents, given that the Lewiston, Maine massacre was at these two venues. Yep! Just do nothing is acceptable today.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.