And while gun control advocates grow more quiet, the gun lobby grows stronger and louder. According to a report issued Friday by the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, “For gun rights groups, 2012 was the most active election cycle since 2000. They contributed a total of $3 million to candidates, 96 percent of them Republicans.” By contrast, the group pointed out that “gun control groups contributed less in this election cycle than in any cycle as far back as OpenSecrets has data (1990).”

According to the Web site ThinkProgress, Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, wasted no time trying to pin Friday’s shooting on gun control advocates. ThinkProgress quoted a statement of his that read, in part: “Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands. Federal and state laws combined to ensure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones.”

Outrageous.

This is a sad, sad state of affairs.

No wonder public opinion is shifting away from gun control. Gallup found that the number of Americans who believe that these laws should be stricter fell more than 40 percent from 1991 to 2011.

Gallup also found, for the first time last year, “greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53 percent to 43 percent. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57 percent for and 42 percent against an assault rifle ban.”

Both the Oregon and Connecticut shooters had semiautomatic weapons.

And screening prospective gun buyers for criminal records and for mental illness is helpful, but it is not enough and isn’t always done.

Image Credit... The New York Times

And mass shooters don’t necessarily have criminal records and seem to have no problem obtaining legal guns.