When do you think the next mass shooting will happen?
Will it be in another movie theater or place of worship? Maybe another grocery store.
Will it involve kids?
When it happens, will you worry about losing your gun rights?
These are questions I have wondered about ever since the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin briefly captured our attention.
And then last weekend a Tucson woman was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing her two kids. And then came the shootout near Texas A&M University Monday, with three dead including the gunman and four injured. That same day on Tucson's north side, a husband shot and killed his wife before killing himself. A more common form of tragedy, I suppose.
Talking about how to respond to gun violence is about as comfortable as cuddling a cholla. The mental-health side is complicated. Gun control is controversial. But many of the Tucson shooting survivors are hoping to change this, drawing on their own experiences to push for less gun violence.
They have linked up with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group formed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to speak up about the need for tougher gun laws. After the Aurora shooting, many Tucson survivors published an ad in USA Today asking for a plan from President Obama or presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
"Our hearts ache for Aurora," the ad says. "We know the wounds they have suffered. We remember the kind words that our elected officials had for us. But we have seen their moment of silence stretch into 18 months of inaction."
What do they want?
They often talk about limiting magazines to 10 rounds, restricting the sale of assault weapons, requiring background checks for all gun sales, not just the ones involving licensed dealers; and better reporting for the mentally ill. All easier said than done.
"We are really well-suited to champion this cause," Patricia Maisch, who grabbed the magazine from Jared Lee Loughner, told me last week. "I don't see any reason to stop trying. If I do, then I will have lost a lot of respect for myself."
Nancy Bowman, a nurse who tended to the wounded at the Safeway on Jan. 8, 2011, also sat at the table.
"I have lost friends because they can't understand why I would dare to go out and try to infringe on their Second Amendment rights," Bowman said. "People I have known and loved all my life."
The group is hoping its diversity will help their message gain traction.
They are members of both major parties. Some are gun owners. Some never thought about guns or mental illness until the shooting. All had their lives change through our mass shooting.
"I am a Republican. I strongly support the NRA and the Second Amendment," Bill Badger, a retired Army colonel who helped tackle Loughner after a bullet grazed him in the head, told me at his home. "We have to get congressional people who are willing to take some action."
Good luck. They are up against so much.
Gun sales have been surging throughout the country and in Arizona. Through July of this year, licensed firearms dealers have done FBI background checks on 179,242 buyers here. Over the same period in 2011, there were 140,436. In 2010, it was 113,948 through July. While the stats aren't a perfect reflection of sales, they are an indicator of demand.
"Americans have made it very clear politically that they have no patience for the idea that the government is going to ban guns, and that's the reason no one has proposed any real plan," Todd Rathner, a lobbyist and National Rifle Association board member, told me.
Do Americans have patience for what happened in Wisconsin, Colorado or Tucson? I asked Rathner if it could be in the NRA's best interests to support efforts to limit these mass shootings.
He said it was clearly a mental-health issue and not a gun issue.
"There is no discussion in particular about us trying to solve these mass-casualty shooting issues because we are not responsible for the actions of a handful of maniacs," he said. "And what our job is, and the way we perceive our job to be in the NRA, is to protect the law-abiding gun owners from a legislative overreaction to these types of shootings."
Law-abiding gun owners should not be lumped in with the Loughners of the world - or punished because of them. But why the unwillingness to help address mass shootings? What is the appropriate legislative reaction?
If we are afraid or unwilling to find solutions, then maybe the answer is to accept mass shootings as another part of ordinary life.
When do you think the next mass shooting will happen?
Contact columnist Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com
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