In November, as Texas families mourned their loved ones after the mass murder that took 26 lives in a Sutherland Springs church, I wrote a column suggesting it was a particularly vile exercise to disparage the prayers sent their way.

From the depths of social media's darkest caves to the extremes of media punditry, countless thoughtful Americans heard the mocking taunt that those good wishes, whether from ordinary citizens or our nation's leaders, constituted "doing nothing."

Three months later, 17 more lives are lost in a mass shooting, this time in a Florida high school. Again, many people beating the drum for new gun control laws are not satisfied to simply offer their ideas for consideration. They must first make clear that failing to sign on to their favored tactic makes one an accessory to the killings.

As the crime scene was still being processed, Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy chalked up this latest tragedy as "a consequence of our inaction." By that, of course, he means those kids would still be alive if we had simply seen the wisdom of his party's passion for new gun laws.

"It scares me to death," he says, "that this body does not take seriously the safety of my children." This is execrable slander. If Democrats seek to attract support for their views, perhaps it is an unwise start to suggest that people who oppose them are somehow ambivalent to mass murder.

But this has become habit. Americans asserting that the real problem involves a fallen world, a broken society, individual evil, inadequate attention to danger signals and insufficient school security are not merely people to be engaged in debate; they are people to be insulted. The derision is then followed by a lament that progress toward solutions is elusive. I wonder why.

For too many gun-control supporters, if gun-rights advocates are merely insensitive to carnage, the National Rifle Association might as well be co-conspirators. A tweet from Republican turncoat Matthew Dowd typifies: "The only way we are going to be able to protect folks from gun violence is if we defeat any politician in bed with the NRA and supported by them. It must happen in 2018 and 2020. Then something will change for the better."

For those unfamiliar, the NRA does what every other advocacy group does. It supports politicians who will advance its goals, which in this case involve making sure we don't lose our Second Amendment freedoms in a wave of post-shooting hysteria. Anyone is free to agree or disagree with the NRA agenda, but it is a vicious smear to suggest that magical solutions to gun violence are just around the corner if we can only purge the conservatives seeking to safeguard our rights.

None of this is about background checks. Everyone, the NRA included, favors a system that would block purchases by people who have no business owning guns. Once again, this is about the demonization of weaponry. There are roughly 15 million AR-15s owned by law-abiding Americans, but the tiny sliver used criminally make it a prime candidate for gun-grabbers.

So once again, as innocent Americans are laid to rest after another monster misuses a gun, we learn that too few Americans are interested in tackling the real problems at the root of mass shootings. We are a damaged society that has lost its grip on various fundamentals. We don't pay enough attention to people giving off alarming signals. We don't enact solid plans, from armed security to allowing armed teachers, that can dissuade shootings or interrupt them with less lethality. We don't recognize that our problem is not guns but people, who sometimes have a capacity for unspeakable evil.

Addressing those factors requires serious introspection and courageous clarity, both wholly absent from the reflex urges of posturing politicians snowing the public that they somehow hold the golden keys of legislative remedy.

Mark Davis is a radio host and frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News. The Mark Davis Show airs from 7 to 10 a.m. weekdays on KSKY-AM (660). Email: markdavisshow@gmail.com

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