The senseless shooting of a deputy sheriff as he fills his patrol car with gas shocks and saddens Houston. An off-duty police officer shoots a mentally disturbed man as his family seeks treatment for him in a Houston hospital. A man cleaning his gun accidentally shoots and kills himself. Bexar County sheriff's deputies shoot and kill a San Antonio man who may or may not have had his hands in the air, who may or may not have been holding a knife.

These random gleanings - a small sampling, to be sure - are the contributions Texas has made in the last few days to this nation's gun-violence affliction. They take their place among more than 33,000 gun deaths we tolerate every year, based on figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's more than 11,000 by homicide and 21,000 by suicide. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 297 Americans are shot daily in murders, suicides, assaults and accidents; 89 die.

Those numbers are appalling. Equally appalling is the fact that we've grown accustomed to them. We still have the capacity to be shocked by mass shootings - although we can't bring ourselves to do anything about them - or by something so grotesque as two young TV journalists being shot to death on live TV, but otherwise gun carnage is simply collateral damage in a fealty to the Second Amendment that's almost religious in its intensity. Imagine, though, how Australia (30 gun deaths annually), Great Britain (41) and Japan (11) would respond to more than 30,000 of their citizens dying by gun every year.

Actually, there's no need to imagine. Australia responded to a mass shooting in 1996 that left 35 people dead by enacting a comprehensive gun-control regimen that has had a dramatic effect on the rate of gun deaths. According to the Journal of Public Health Policy, Australia's firearm suicide rate dropped by half in the next seven years; the firearm homicide rate dropped almost by half. Meanwhile, we have had more than one mass shooting per day, on average, throughout 2015. (A mass shooting means that four or more people were shot.)

As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof noted recently, "More Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American history."

There will come a day when the National Rifle Association's choke-hold on craven politicians will end. We've seen it before: Whether it's seat belts and other safety measures in automobiles or the facts about the dangers of tobacco, truth and common sense eventually win out, even against the most relentless and well-funded foes. And so it will be with guns, once a new generation of elected officials summons the courage to stand up to bullies and ideologues. It won't be tomorrow, but as with gay marriage and acceptance of marijuana, it could be swift when it comes, even in gun-loving Texas.

Meanwhile, Texans and Americans who understand that our gun laws are "demented," to borrow Kristof's description, can continue pushing "well-regulated" gun ownership, to borrow from the Constitution itself.

The comprehensive plan we need would include universal background checks for both private sales and gun shows to keep guns out of the hands of felons, domestic abusers and other dangerous individuals; limits on gun purchases to one a month to reduce gun trafficking; stronger penalties for straw purchasers; safe storage requirements; so-called smart guns and other safety measures; waiting periods to buy a handgun, and more research on what measures actually save lives.

If Congress continues to quail, states should take the lead. Of course, that won't be happening in Texas anytime soon, but even if their elected representatives ignore them, individuals need to stand up. They need to join Andy Parker, a Virginian, who vowed last week to do whatever it takes to end gun violence.

The name Andy Parker may not be familiar. It was his beautiful daughter Alison who was struck down in the prime of her life, on live TV, by a deranged former colleague wielding a gun.