La seule véritable catastrophe consiste à jeter l’éponge. Ne le faisons pas, où que nous soyons. Tou·tes, à notre échelle, nous devons résister, par la pensée, la parole et l’acte.

The truth is that our nation, great though it is in so many ways, has a horrific history of political violence and a seemingly innate obsession with firearms. Four presidents have been assassinated in office — Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1881, McKinley in 1901, and Kennedy in 1963 — all by gunshots. Three more — Roosevelt, Reagan (who nearly died), and now Trump — have been wounded by gunshots.

So here is what the Democrats should do. Tomorrow morning Chuck Schumer should put on the floor of the Senate a law mandating strict background checks for all gun purchases. Perhaps tie it to a reinstitution of the 1994 assault weapons ban that Republicans allowed to expire in 2004. Give it a name like the “Anti Political and School Violence Act”. Make Republicans shoot it down. Make them say, as Trump himself did after a school shooting massacre in Iowa this year, that we “have to get over it, we have to move forward.” It’s not just an outrage when your right-wing authoritarian hero gets his ear nicked by an assassin’s bullet. It’s an outrage when anyone is shot by a nut with a gun.

Make them say it. See how that flies.