This is the worst thing to write about.

After three mass shootings claimed the lives of 34 people last week, I have little confidence that anything will change. We now have to add El Paso (22 dead) and Dayton (9 dead) — not Toledo, Mr. President — to the horrific list of American cities that are now shorthand names for mass gun massacres. Virginia Beach (12 dead). Thousand Oaks (12 dead). Pittsburgh (11 dead). Santa Fe (10 dead). Parkland (17 dead, including seven 14-year-olds). Charleston (9 black churchgoers dead). Sutherland Springs (26 dead). Las Vegas (58 dead). Orlando (49 LGBTQ folks dead). San Bernadino (14 dead). Washington Navy Yard (12 dead). Newtown (27 dead). Aurora (12 dead). Fort Hood (13 dead). Binghamton (13 dead). Geneva (10 dead). Virginia Tech (32 dead). Columbine (13 dead).

And in Chicago, just last weekend 47 people were shot, and at least five of them died — including two mothers who had dedicated the last few years of their too-short lives to combating gun violence.

How many of these do you even remember? I was 14 when Columbine happened, and our school responded with police officers, metal detectors, random locker searches, and mandatory, terrifying lockdown drills. Since then there have been more mass shootings, more school shootings, and more guns sold than at any time in American history.

What do all of these murders have in common? Violent video games? Mental illness? As Ohio State Representative Candice Keller blamed, “transgender, homosexual marriage and drag queen advocates?”

Of course, it is none of those things. This is scapegoating and excuse-making by the gun lobby and their enablers on the right, desperate to blame anything but easy access to guns for these horrendous acts. Blaming mass shootings on people with mental illnesses is a lazy, convenient way to point attention away from the real problems.

Rosie Phillips Davis, PhD., president of the American Psychological Association, recently said, “Routinely blaming mass shootings on mental illness is unfounded and stigmatizing. The rates of mental illness are roughly the same around the world, yet other countries are not experiencing these traumatic events as often as we face them. One critical factor is access to, and the lethality of the weapons that are being used in these crimes. Adding racism, intolerance and bigotry to the mix is a recipe for disaster.”

The El Paso shooter drove nine hours to kill immigrants while Trump and bowtied Fox News hack Tucker Carlson claim Mexicans are “invading” our country and because internet message boards told him the white race was being erased.

If more guns were the answer, we would be the safest nation on earth. Japan and South Korea love violent video games, but they don’t have easy access to guns, so their gun murder rate is infinitesimal compared to the U.S. This is not hard. So why can’t we do anything about it?

Politicians like Sen. Cory Gardner, the fourth-highest recipient of NRA money out of the entire U.S. Senate, make a career of stopping broadly popular, reasonable gun-safety measures like universal background checks, limits on high capacity magazines, and extreme risk protection order legislation that even Donald Trump has now voiced support for. Not a single Republican supported these bills in the Colorado legislature, and several Democratic lawmakers, including Gov. Jared Polis, are ostensibly the targets of recall attempts because of their passage.

When confronted with the results of his silence, his complicity, his piles of NRA money, Gardner offered a lame statement on Twitter, “There’s no place for bigoted white supremacy in our nation.”

Gardner talks a lot, the problem is that he never does anything about it. Does Gardner refuse to act because of the money he gets from the NRA? Probably not. He refuses to act because he’s terrified of the gun lobby and the Republican base who has been conditioned to foam at the mouth at the mere suggestion that, “maybe we shouldn’t have military-style weapons of war available for instant purchase every Bass Pro Shop.”

Unfortunately, it is probably already too late to prevent the next mass shooting. For decades, the NRA, Republican politicians, and fear-mongers and hate-peddlers on cable-TV tried to convince America that the only way to keep themselves safe — from criminals, and our own government — was to amass a personal arsenal of firearms. It worked, and now there are over 120 guns for every 100 people in the United States.

But they sell bulletproof backpacks now because apparently, this country values easy access to firearms more than the safety of our kids in school, and we would rather deal with the consequences than prevention. When change does come someday, every life lost while our leaders stood by and did nothing will be a damning indictment: of Cory Gardner, and of his whole generation.

Ian Silverii is the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest progressive advocacy group.

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