The N.R.A. Can Be Beat

Parents throughout the country live with the dread that the next lockdown at their child’s school won’t be a drill and that screams like those we heard on cellphones from classrooms at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will come from their own child’s classroom.

The terror that has gripped their elected officials, however, is fear of the wealthy gun lobby, to which they have let themselves be held hostage for decades.

But standing up to gun rights extremists and industry lobbyists can no longer be seen as an act of heroism that could lead to political suicide. It is an act of common sense that would bring our government under the control of its citizens.

Hundreds have been killed in mass shootings at a high school in Littleton, Colo., a church in Charleston, S.C., an office party in San Bernardino, Calif., a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and elsewhere in the past 20 years. After 20 first graders and a half-dozen adults were slaughtered in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, it seemed that a line would be drawn in the sand. Enough was enough, people said. But nothing was done. People have been injured or killed in eight school shootings in the first seven weeks of 2018 alone.

Source :- nytimes