Even though the mass shooting in Orlando over the weekend is the largest in our nation’s history, the fallout is following a standard pattern, a narrative so well-worn that it’s impossible not to become numb to it: Liberals call for gun control, conservatives act like you are trying to take away their precious babies, nothing gets done, everyone eventually drifts away until the next horrible mass shooting.
Oh yeah, and the gun industry makes an absolute mint.
I wrote about this after the San Bernardino shooting, and I really don’t want to sound like a broken record, but really, the problem here is that mass murder is, itself, a broken record: The crying parents, the frantic phone calls, the deadening realization that there is no body count high enough to get any movement on the issue of gun control in this country.
The gun lobby has ever reason to dig its heels in harder against gun control after a mass shooting, because high profile mass murder is a big driver of sales and profits for the gun industry. This shooting was no different. While sales numbers aren’t in yet, as soon as the stock market opened Monday, gun manufacturers saw a spike in stock prices.