The despair of America's gun debate

America is the most powerful country in human history. How can we be so powerless to stop our epidemic of gun violence?

The ongoing gun debate.
(Image credit: Ikon Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

President Trump's brief remarks to the nation on Thursday morning about the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida, confirmed what informed observers of American politics already knew perfectly well: Nothing whatsoever is going to change.

More than five years after 26 elementary school children and teachers were gunned down in Newtown, Connecticut; four months after 58 concertgoers were massacred (and an astonishing 500 were injured) in Las Vegas; three months after 26 churchgoers were slaughtered in Sutherland Springs, Texas — after all of those deaths, all of that suffering, and so much more, the country will do nothing significant to ensure that such shootings become less frequent.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.