April 4, 2009: 14 Die in Shooting at Community Center in Binghamton, N.Y.
January 8, 2011: Jared Loughner opened fire while Rep. Gabby Giffords was meeting with constituents outside a supermarket
Sept. 16, 2013: Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 inside Washington's Navy Yard
June 17, 2015: Dylann Storm Roof killed 9 in Charleston church
Aug. 26, 2015: Two television journalists were fatally shot by an ex-coworker during a live television interview
Oct. 1, 2015: Chris Harper Mercer kills ten and injures least 7 others in a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College
As Americans have become far too inundated with these horrific headlines of high-profile mass shootings under the Obama Administration, we are left again to deal with the shock of another national tragedy.
"Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We have become numb to this," President Obama said in his most recent mass shooting address.
ShootingTracker reports, mass shootings -- defined as incidents in which four or more people are shot -- have happened hundreds of times over the last several years. In fact, during Obama's second term, a Sunday-to-Saturday calendar week has not passed without a mass shooting incident.
Nevertheless, a frustrated and exasperated Barack Obama addressed the latest gun massacre in Oregon last week.
But his tone lacked his trademark soaring rhetoric and was replaced with a dejected undertone of irritable apathy, combined with a foreboding cynicism that braces for the inevitable visceral opposition of having a meaningful debate about such a pressing issue.
"What's also routine is that somebody, somewhere, will comment and say 'Obama politicized this issue.' Well this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic," Obama added.
Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush spoke last Friday in South Carolina, his response as automatic as the weapons he adamantly defends.
"We're in a difficult time in our country and I don't think more government is necessarily the answer to this ... look, stuff happens, there's always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something and it's not necessarily the right thing to do."
Why shouldn't we politicize an issue the claims the lives of over 30,000 Americans per year?
We are experts at manufacturing fake outrage and politicizing much more trivial events that don't adversely affect the lives of level-headed, rational people, including the following:
Last December, FOX News re-launched their "War on Christmas" segment after American Atheists posted billboards advising children to "skip church" on Christmas or when "Merry Christmas" is replaced with "Happy Holidays" in order to acknowledge that Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice and the newly minted secular HumanLight also occur in December.
Target announced in August that it would phase out "gender-based language" from the children's bedding and toy aisles, sparking thousands of outraged comments from offended conservative customers vowing to boycott the store's "political correctness." This became a hot-button issue, although the layout of the store hasn't changed.
Kim Davis, a woman so traditionally lovely, four different men wanted to marry her, became the patron saint for religious intolerance, as Mike Huckabee claimed her arrest was the "Criminalization of Christianity" at a time when 70 percent of the country is Christian.
Support for Planned Parenthood has become the focal point of the "decline in American values," according to pro-lifers, but 97 percent of Planned Parenthood's services aren't abortion-related, the Hyde Amendment prevents federal funding of abortions, and they prevent 515,000 unintended pregnancies and 216,000 abortions each year.
In the midst of rising diabetes and obesity rates in New York City, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to limit sales of soda beverages to 16 oz. in 2012. This controversial law fizzed into a heated debate about government intervention vs. personal choice, even though fast food restaurants continued to offer unlimited refills. Regardless, the New York State Court of Appeals eventually struck the legislation down.
Finally, the recent resurgence of measles has shed light on whether vaccines should be mandatory, but parents believing the non-existent medical evidence linking it to autism refuse to treat their children despite the fact that "herd immunity" protects a population from serious diseases through widespread vaccination.
The irony here is we politicize nonsensical issues out of the perpetual fear of change, but in the instance of gun violence, we refuse to politicize this issue out of fear of change.
The Rampage Shooting Index shows that the U.S. doesn't even place in the top five "advanced" countries in the most per capita shooting fatalities. All five countries ahead of the U.S. have more restrictive gun laws, so maybe more stringent gun laws isn't the only panacea.
Other possible answers could include better mental health care, as 60 percent of annual gun-related deaths are suicide. Maybe it's increased security in public schools, more thorough criminal and mental background checks, banning firearm sales at gun conventions, proper gun training, or limiting magazines and assault weapons.
This is the beauty of a substantive debate, policies and ideas can be contested and the most sensible and applicable to American society can be cherry-picked to develop a sensible solution to a national problem.
Instead we're met with responses such as:
"The only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre in a press conference addressing the Sandy Hook shooting.
"As a Doctor, I spent many a night pulling bullets out of bodies," Dr. Ben Carson said after the Umpqua Community College massacre. "There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking - but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away."
Charts from the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Center and UNODC show a direct correlation between gun ownership and shootings, so it's time to give the "more guns" talking point the Old Yeller.
According to Politifact, which analyzed statistics from the CDC, Gun Violence Archive, Mass Shooting Tracker and the National Vital Statistics System, there have been 301,797 gun related deaths in America in the past decade compared to 71 lives lost to domestic terrorist attacks.
In response to terrorist attacks, we have engaged in Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, used the NSA and PATRIOT Act to conduct unwarranted surveillance on innocent Americans, opened up a detention center in Guantanamo Bay and bolstered security at all American airports.
But we just accept mass shootings as a staple of American life, refusing to even push for a logical debate.
The fact that we refuse to politicize this issue isn't just an indictment of our political system, it just shows how dysfunctional and weary we have become as a society.
Whether you're a law-abiding Second Amendment enthusiast or a concerned soccer mom, both sides should be able to agree that gun violence deserves a serious discussion outside of the tried, cliché talking points that are as empty as a recently fired shell.
Otherwise, refusing to talk about this too soon after another mass shooting will be too late after the next one occurs.