Opinion: Americans treat mass shootings like natural disasters. As if we can do nothing to prevent them

Police stand at the ambulance entrance to the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where many of the shooting victims were brought. Hearing how resigned commentators and politicians have become about yet another mass shooting emphasized something I’ve been thinking for a while: We’ve started treating mass shootings like natural disasters. We strengthen our homes, stock supplies in our earthquake kits and teach our kids to “duck and cover.” As mass shootings have increased in frequency and severity, we seem to have adopted a similar mindset. After the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School — the event that ushered in the modern era of mass shootings — we have mostly responded by treating mass shootings like earthquakes. Common sense and widely supported reforms such as instituting background checks and red flag lists for people with histories of violence; eliminating loopholes that allow for unregulated firearms sales at gun shows; reducing magazine capacity; restricting “ghost guns”; and banning the general sale of military-style rifles, such as the AR-15, will make it harder for “bad guys” to get guns and will prevent hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths every year.