Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE)

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE)

"That's a hypothetical question," said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). "I take every case based on the evidence before me, not speculation. I'm not going to speculate."

Some senators disputed that tightening background checks on gun sales would have any effect on stemming gun violence. "It's been shown that it really wouldn't," said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). "The people who have committed these horrific crimes would never have been stopped by a background check." "Not one of the gun violence cases that has been talked about is related to that," said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), ducking into an elevator. "So, it's a different issue."

Republicans are still dipping, dodging, and putting gun ownership over human life in the wake of yet another mass shooting. Huffington Post's Jennifer Bendery cornered a few of them (along with Heidi Heitkamp, the one current Democratic senator who voted against universal background checks after Newtown), asking just what it would take to get them to support stronger gun laws.Unfortunately, it's not that hypothetical, because in case Isakson hasn't noticed, we have a lot of mass shootings. But since he told Bendery that all the mass shootings of the last few years haven't changed his mind, I guess that's his answer. Johnny Isakson thinks gun ownership is more important than human life. Then there are the deniers:Uh-huh. The states that have background check requirements for private gun sales have 3.41 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people (an average pulled up by Washington, D.C., which is something of a special case). The states that don't have any background check requirements beyond federal law have 4.17 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people. So you can point to a specific killing and say it wasn't caused by lack of background checks, but you can't say—truthfully, anyway—that the laws don't make a difference.

It's not just homicide, either. It's also kids accidentally killing their toddler siblings, and many of the other non-homicidal but still lethal horrors we read about in Gunfail. Overall, the states with the strongest gun laws have lower rates of gun-related deaths than the states with the weakest ones. Hawaii has 2.5 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people and Massachusetts has 2.9, while at the other end, Louisiana has 19.1 and Alaska has 19.8. We're talking about a lot of people dying here.