Mary Margaret Elmayan: Bite the bullet

I am ashamed of congressional representatives, bought off by the NRA, who refuse to bite the NRA hand feeding them despite a shooting of one of their own, Gabrielle Giffords.

The NRA apparently has shrewdly indoctrinated many voters into learned helplessness. Despite investigations to determine cause and actions to prevent future car/plane/medical disasters, there remains indifference and even a resigned inevitability to the unmitigated tragedy caused by gun.

Congress absurdly refused to fund public health research into gun violence. Is that because knowledge is power? The NRA wants us to remain ignorant and to erroneously conclude more guns equals more safety.

The United States should be the safest nation on earth, but that is simply untrue. Mass shootings occur in places of worship, entertainment, schools, health care, work. Single shootings occur every day across our country. How many more gun deaths must there be?

Surely our Founding Fathers would have disallowed the right to bear the kinds of arms (as in weapons of mass destruction) that proliferate today, given how hard it was back then to fire for limited distances. Times change. Let’s bite the proverbial bullet and end our complacency with gun violence.

This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Mary Margaret Elmayan: Bite the bullet."