President Obama’s fleeting mention of the need for stronger gun controls at a presidential debate last month was hardly the kind of forceful political statement needed to address the scourge of gun violence in this country. Even his tepid remark was considered by the nation’s gun owners as a threat to take away their firearms. In what amounts to a buyers’ panic, they are again ramping up gun and ammunition sales as they did four years ago, convinced that Mr. Obama intends a gun-control crackdown.

Yet in his first term, Mr. Obama did nothing to cross the gun lobby, and he actually signed legislation allowing loaded firearms to be carried in national parks. Let’s hope Mr. Obama shows more courage on guns in his second term. He said during the debate that he would see “if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced” and that we need to look at “other sources of the violence,” like “cheap handguns.” Now it’s time to follow through on those promises.

Wary politicians, including Mr. Obama, will issue statements of mourning for the victims in mass shootings, which seem to happen ever more frequently. But they refuse to say much about 30,000 American lives that are lost each year because of shootings.

Horrific incidents like the massacre in July at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and murder of six others in Tucson last year produced vows in Congress to screen the mentally ill more effectively and to ban battlefield clips of 100 rounds of ammunition that have no place in a civilized country. But there have been more than 60 multiple shooting incidents since the Tucson shooting, and nothing has been done to make such killings less likely in the future.