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Originally Posted by MysticCat
I don't know about that. I think history just might support the idea that sometimes those emotional events are what prompt people in power into actually doing something. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a direct catalyst for workplace safety laws. The Selma to Montgomery marches, and particularly the violence in Selma, was a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act (which LBJ sent to Congress just ten days after Selma).
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It's a matter of perspective, but comparing the Shirtwaist Factory or the incidents in the South during the civil rights era isn't a very apt comparison. Consider that while not routine, school shootings are something which have reoccurred many times going back to colonial times (of course these days, our deaths are not usually caused by marauding native war bands). While tragic, this has happened before many many times and regardless of what laws you pass, it'll happen again.
If you're going to consider new legislation, there needs to be a weighing of cost vs. benefit. There's a strong argument to be made that finding any benefit whatsoever is tricky to impossible.
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Strike will the iron is hot and all.
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Exploiting tragedy to score political points.
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What this means may be a matter of perspective. I agree that the evidence seems to show that mass killings overall have been in decline in recent years. But just in 2012, we've had Aurora, Oak Creek, WI, Minneapolis and now Newtown. To me, that means (1) they're not rare enough and (2) we're not doing all we can to reduce them more.
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It's not disputable that 2012 has been an exceptionally bad year, but it is nowhere close to what we used to see 20 years ago. We passed gun legislation back then. How many deaths were prevented by the Clinton "assault weapons" ban?