There have been 36 mass murders with guns since 1982. Mother Jones has put together a map which shows where they have occurred. There have been murders from Florida in the Southeast to Washington in the Northwest, from Connecticut in the Northeast to California in the West. The “heartland” hasn’t been immune either: there have been mass murders in Iowa, Utah and Illinois.

No region has been immune (even Hawai’i had one in 1999), yet the power of the gun lobby has increased over that time. The assault weapons ban was allowed to expire in 2004 and no renewal has been up for a vote since then.

The NRA needs to be curbed, reined in or somehow diminished.