Tragedies like these have seem to have become a week­ly occur­rence. We are so desen­si­tized to vio­lence now that we are not as shocked as we all should be when more lives are end­ed by sense­less gun vio­lence:

As throngs of patrons strolled and browsed at the Mall in Colum­bia on a gray, cold Sat­ur­day, shot­gun blasts rang out and bod­ies fell as a famil­iar tragedy — homi­ci­dal luna­cy in a crowd­ed pub­lic place — brought ter­ror to a sub­ur­ban Mary­land shop­ping complex.

It hap­pened just after 11 a.m., about 25 miles north­east of Wash­ing­ton [D.C.]. A gun­man opened fire on the mall’s sec­ond lev­el, killing two employ­ees of Zumiez, a cloth­ing store for skate­board­ers and snow­board­ers, Howard Coun­ty police said.

Min­utes lat­er, when offi­cers arrived, they found the shoot­er dead of an appar­ent­ly self-inflict­ed wound.

No home, work­place, church, school, mall, or gath­er­ing place is safe in a soci­ety where peo­ple who should not pos­sess a firearm can eas­i­ly get one and unleash ter­ror on a com­mu­ni­ty like Colum­bia, Maryland.

Oth­er coun­tries have imposed sen­si­ble restric­tions, includ­ing uni­ver­sal back­ground checks, on gun sales and gun own­er­ship. We haven’t, part­ly because polit­i­cal­ly pow­er­ful pro-gun orga­ni­za­tions like the NRA oppose tak­ing any steps that would make safe firearms own­er­ship a strict norm in our soci­ety, as opposed to just best prac­tices that gun man­u­fac­tur­ers, gun deal­ers, and gun own­ers are free to ignore.

The NRA and their ilk speak about the Sec­ond Amend­ment with such rev­er­ence, it makes us won­der if they are at all acquaint­ed with the First. Or the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, in which our founders talked about the inher­ent and unalien­able rights, chiefly the preser­va­tion of life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness.

Zumiez employ­ees Bri­an­na Ben­lo­lo and Tyler John­son no longer have their lives,  their lib­er­ty, or the chance to be hap­py. They were killed in the blink of an eye by bul­lets fired from the gun of a deranged indi­vid­ual who ulti­mate­ly turned his gun on him­self after fir­ing on them and oth­ers. Both Bri­an­na and Tyler were in their twen­ties. Both had so much to look for­ward to, and to do.

Trag­i­cal­ly, now they’re gone. Their fam­i­lies will deal with the pain of their slay­ing for the rest of their lives, like the fam­i­lies of the Auro­ra and New­town mas­sacres, or the Oak Creek and Tuc­son shoot­ings, or the thou­sands of oth­er vic­tims of gun vio­lence over the last decade. Things are get­ting worse, not bet­ter, as NPR report­ed a few days ago: there has been a sharp rise in the num­ber of mass shoot­ings in the Unit­ed States since Barack Oba­ma and Joe Biden were elected.

The Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent are among those who wants to take action, but the very sen­si­ble and extreme­ly basic reforms they have pro­posed at the fed­er­al lev­el have been stymied by our cur­rent do-noth­ing Con­gress, par­tic­u­lar­ly House and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, who refuse to dis­obey their NRA masters.

This fail­ure to act is unac­cept­able, and we ought to be vocal in let­ting our elect­ed lead­ers know that the sta­tus quo is unten­able. Here in Wash­ing­ton, we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make change for the bet­ter by pass­ing Ini­tia­tive 594, which would require uni­ver­sal back­ground checks on gun sales. I‑594 was cer­ti­fied by the Sec­re­tary of State this past week and is now before the Leg­is­la­ture. We urge the House and the Sen­ate to pass it straight­away, and to reject its evil cousin, I‑591, which is backed by the uncom­pro­mis­ing gun lob­by and zeal­ous gun enthusiasts.

We send our deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of Bri­an­na and Tyler in the wake of today’s tragedy, as well as to long­time NPI sup­port­er Tom Cam­pi­on, cofounder and chair­man of Zumiez, Zumiez CEO Rick Brooks, and all Zumiez employ­ees, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who worked with Bri­an­na and Tyler at the Colum­bia, Mary­land store.

All of them will be in our thoughts and prayers tonight and in the days to come.