Our View: Demand Action On Gun Control

 It’s been a difficult week.

 Especially in the lead-up to the holidays, the news over the weekend of the shootings at Brown University and Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia was devastating. Add to that what appears to be the senseless killing of Hollywood icon Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner (apparently not gun related), and it's easy to understand how one can begin to spiral into a loss of hope in the world.

 The Brown shooting was particularly difficult for us at The Chronicle, as one of our summer interns is a student at the Providence college. She is fine, thankfully, but many of us here felt that sudden feeling of panic when we first heard the news.

 We note the difference in the response to the two mass shootings from leaders in Australia and the United States. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already announced measures to strengthen the county’s already tough gun laws in the wake of the biggest mass shooting in the country since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. The country must also work to address antisemitism that has skyrocketed in recent years, perhaps a reflection of rising antisemitism worldwide.

 But in the United States, well, we get a lot of thoughts and prayers but no actions. 

 There are other measures the U.S. can take, unless we want to continue to see our citizens — including our children — cut down by senseless gun violence. Implement universal background checks; eliminate assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; require training and insurance (as we do for driver’s licenses and cars); and take guns away from those under domestic violence orders and, further, take them away — forever — from anyone convicted of a serious crime.

 We’ll get letters about this editorial; so be it. If there can be restrictions on free speech, there can be restrictions on the Second Amendment. Our politicians are ineffective in dealing with gun violence, and they must be held to account. Send them photos of the students killed at Brown. Let them know that their failure in this area jeopardizes their position. Demand action on gun control.

 Nobody wants to suffer through another week like this.