Members of the House of Representatives stand a very good chance of having the opportunity and obligation to console family members and victims of a mass shooting—or, if they’re Republicans, offer thoughts and prayers—in their own district in any given year:
This year, 28 different congressional districts have experienced a mass shooting.
That comes on the heels of 2017, when the numbers were equally staggering. That year, more than 180 congressional districts—roughly 40 percent of the House of Representatives—experienced a mass shooting, according to a Daily Beast analysis using data and research compiled by the Gun Violence Archive. The group defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not necessarily killed, in an incident.
If they did want to do something about this beyond thoughts and prayers, there’s something that we know would have a good chance of working, because it already worked once before: an assault weapons ban.
Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.
It might not be a magic wand to completely eliminate mass shootings, but what if we could again get a 37 percent drop in massacres and a 43 percent drop in resulting deaths? That’s a lot of lives, at the current rate.
But nah, Republicans are happy with their thoughts and prayers.