THREE YEARS ago, after nine people were gunned down at a community college in Roseburg, Ore., we published a list of some of the other victims of mass shootings in the United States. “Our hope,’’ we wrote, “is that we never become numb to these terrible, preventable events, but instead honor these victims by acting to prevent future shootings.”
Sadly — maddeningly — Congress has failed to do that. And the list has only gotten longer. Since its last appearance, in February, after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, there have been mass shootings at a newspaper office in Maryland, a Texas high school, a Waffle House in Tennessee, a drugstore distribution center in Maryland, a synagogue in Pittsburgh and, most recently, a bar in Southern California.
The Nov. 7 shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks was the 307th mass shooting in the United States this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive showing that, in all, 328 people died. Killed at the Borderline Bar were Sean Adler, 48; Cody Coffman, 22; Blake Dingman, 21; Jake Dunham, 21; Ron Helus, 54; Alaina Housley, 18; Dan Manrique, 33; Justin Meek, 23; Kristina Morisette, 20; Mark Meza Jr., 20; Telemachus Orfanos, 27; and Noel Sparks, 21.
View the complete November 16 editorial by The Washington Post on their website here.