This week alone, 22 people were killed and 44 injured by guns in mass shootings, as 2022 is shaping up to be one of the worst years for gun violence in recent history. Six people were killed at a Walmart in Virginia by a store manager, and three days later a 22-year-old opened fire in an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs, killing five and injuring 25 people. Four people were killed at a marijuana farm in Oklahoma last Sunday, a mother and her three children were shot dead in Chester, Virginia, on Friday; and mass shootings also occurred in Texas, occurred Illinois, and Mississippi.

Thanksgiving week this year has seen 22 people killed and 44 injured, all victims of guns.

2022 is looking like the second-highest year for mass shootings in the United States on record, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun violence incidents across the country. A mass shooting is one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

There have been at least 607 mass shootings through November 22 this year. That’s just short of the 638 mass shootings in the country at this point last year – the worst year on record since the group began tracking them in 2014. There were a total of 690 mass shootings in 2021. The United States is likely to soon surpass the total of 610 mass shootings in 2020, with more than a month left of 2022 to go.

Every time a shooting occurs, politicians offer the same lame narrative of “thoughts and prayers.” Virginia Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin tweeted: “Our hearts break with the community of Chesapeake this morning … Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities.” But neglects to mention the word “gun,” or “gun control.” 

In an interview the Virginia governor stated “I fundamentally believe that there is going to be a moment to talk about these things. I believe the people who are trying to bring them up are trying to talk about things that really have a time.” he added, “Today’s not the time. Today’s the time to support families and bring people together. There will be a moment to talk about these things.”

The moment is now governor. 

Perhaps the reason gun rights advocates and their comrades on the Hill don’t want to talk about gun control is that a minority is in control of this conversation and that minority happens to dominate legislation on guns in this country.

In 2013, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, the GOP-controlled Senate blocked a measure backed by the Obama administration to impose background checks on all gun sales. The vote was 48-50. Interestingly enough, the senators who supported the bill represented 194 million Americans, while the senators who opposed the bill represented 118 million people. 

Last year, the House passed legislation to expand and strengthen background checks, but it was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. 

It’s no surprise that the GOP relies on votes from states that are very devoted to gun culture (in addition to funds provided by lobbyist groups like the NRA). Polling last year by the Pew Research Center found that 54% of Republicans live in a household with a gun, whereas only 31% of Democrats do. Another 2020 Rand Corporation study found that the 20 states with the highest rates of gun ownership had elected almost two-thirds of the Senate’s Republican lawmakers (32 of 50) and comprised about two-thirds of the states that President Donald Trump carried in the 2020 election (17 of 25). Interestingly enough, the same study found that 20 states with the lowest rates of gun ownership (which happen to be predominantly Democratic) have more than two and half times as many residents as the states with the highest gun-ownership rates.

Republicans in Washington value votes more than human lives, and clearly are prioritizing the sentiments of gun owners in their party over the majority of Americans. Pew polling found that 81% of Americans support background checks (Republicans, Independents, Democrats, and gun owners alike), as well as an assault-weapons ban (63%), and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines (64%). 

Despite the will of the people and the rash of shootings that seem to occur almost daily now, Republican elected officials, in their stubborn opposition to gun control, have bowed to hard-liner gun owners and interest groups like the NRA.