a shooting at (fill in the blank), (x) people killed, (y) injured

The Northern Illinois shooting is sad; I feel very bad for the victims and their families and friends.

What will come out of it? Probably nothing beyond a half-dozen funerals and some heart-wrenching scenes at memorial services. We are clearly not at a place in this country where politicians are prepared to take a risk to thwart the will of the NRA and actually pass meaningful gun control laws, despite growing public support for such laws.

No, not laws that tell you that you may not own a gun, period. But at least laws that strengthen the controls around them, that strictly limit ownership of semi-automatic weapons and the like (which are not used for hunting anything but human beings), that require real checks on the would-be owner.

But clearly protection of the fetish of gun ownership as espoused by the NRA and its lackeys in Congress is more important than protection of our lives.

Do I even bother to note that the Constitution's Second Amendment reads,

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

In other words, this amendment is supposed to protect the STATES from being disarmed by the Federal government in order to maintain its militia. Not the right for every crackpot and misanthrope to pack heat.