Caffeinated Politics

Another mass shooting.

Three children, aged 5, 8, and 11, and one teacher were killed when a 16-year-old Bend, Oregon resident entered Silver Rail Elementary School and started shooting. The shooter is dead as well. Now, as always, the nation enters the most predictable phase of the tragedy with trite statements, condolences, flags lowered to half-staff, and the sing-song insistence that nothing can be done.

Because guns are sacred. You would not want to make a gun owner feel like his guns were less important than a child’s life. Nope, nothing can be done with the continuous murder of children because of guns in schools. Or do you just want to make white men feel bad about their gun fetish?

That concern for gun owners in American public life is what shapes the dearth of gun control legislation aimed at preventing school shootings.

Yet here we are again.

Over the decades, the citizenry’s numbness to this carnage baffles me most. Today we hear the sirens, but in mere hours the country moves on until the next tragedy. But that too is a choice. A sick one, to be sure. Just like not holding the NRA accountable for this never-ending series of gun shootings. Because they are the reason parents need to buy caskets for their kids this week in Bend.

The National Rifle Association has spent decades presenting itself as the leading voice on firearms in America. All we can correctly say is that innocent children are paying the price for the willfully created political paralysis created by the NRA goons and their addled followers.

There are legislative proposals aimed at chipping away at the increasingly painful series of school shootings. No one bill will do all that is required, but to oppose them all is simply proof that the NRA is morally corrupt.

Secure Firearm Storage and Suicide Prevention Act of 2026 would require schools and educational agencies to distribute guidance on safe firearm storage, educate families about the risks of unsecured guns, and promote practices intended to keep firearms out of the hands of children and troubled youth.

The PLAN for School Safety Act (H.R. 2577) is a bipartisan proposal that would help schools conduct safety assessments, identify evidence-based violence-prevention measures, and access state and federal safety grants. Supporters say it focuses on prevention before violence occurs.

Alyssa’s Act of 2025 would expand federal efforts on school safety best practices, emergency preparedness, training, and rapid response systems to help schools prevent and respond to shootings and other emergencies.

IMPROVE Safety for Schools Act would encourage schools to provide parents with information about gun safety and safe storage. The bill would also create a tax credit to help families purchase gun safes and other firearm safety devices.

GOSAFE Act would regulate certain gas-operated semi-automatic firearms and large-capacity magazines. Supporters argue that limiting access to weapons commonly used in mass shootings could reduce the deadliness of attacks.

None of the bills I listed have become law yet. They’ve all been introduced and remain in committee in a Republican-controlled Congress, largely bought and paid for by the NRA.

When children keep dying in schools, the answer cannot be that every gun control proposal is unacceptable and every reform is a bridge too far. Leadership demands more than saying ‘no.’ It demands offering solutions.