WASHINGTON, D.C.(WUSA) - Last Friday I expressed the hope that the shooting in Aurora Colorado might put some new life into the debate over gun control in this country.
Tonight, I realize that was far too hopeful. Now I'm back to reality.
I was naive, foolish, whatever you want to call it. Of course the atrocity in Aurora wasn't going inspire any new debate over gun control. There is no gun control debate in this country.
Oh, there was, once. But the gun rights people won it years ago. Now polls show the majority of us don't want more restrictive gun laws and if the numbers didn't budge for Tuscon or Virginia Tech, why would they change now?
Not to say there's not a little bit of an argument out there, but these days it's over the tiniest possible changes. We went from the assault weapons ban, expired, to closing the gun show loophole, rejected, to now, in the aftermath of another horrible massacre, the suggestion that perhaps the general public could do without magazines that hold 100 bullets.
But the Senate Republican leader says forget it, no change needed. If a crazy man wants to hurt a lot of people, he'd just find another way.
Maybe but let's be real: Mitch McConnell is missing the point. It's not about a perfect system, it's about whether the current one makes it too easy for even a crazy man to buy a whole arsenal.
Sure this deranged shooter may have found another way to hurt people, but we didn't even make him try.