Each time a mass shooting strikes one of our communities we grieve. We gather our loved ones. We reach for answers and clamor for action. Each time, for a moment, it feels as if this time will be different.

But then the news cycle rolls on. And we push down the gut-churning knowledge that it will be only a matter of time before it happens again. Between El Paso and Dayton only about 13 hours elapsed.

Republican leaders try to prevent action and parrot N.R.A. messaging — as Donald Trump did last week when he said, “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”

This is the same president who during his first year in office repealed a rule President Barack Obama and I put in place to help keep guns out of the hands of people with certain mental illnesses. This is the same president who said after Charlottesville that there were “very fine people on both sides,” and who continues to fan the flames of hate and white supremacy. We can’t trust his diagnosis.