More than one mass shooting a day, and all America gets is 'thoughts and prayers'

The horrific reality is that mass shootings are an everyday occurrence in the United States. Literally, not figuratively: Everyday. This country averages more than one shooting per day that kills or injures four or more people. They don’t all make the news as more than a blip—many of them don’t even merit the “thoughts and prayers” of members of Congress, for instance—but they’ve accounted for 462 deaths and 1,314 injuries so far in 2015:

Two databases that track mass shootings that leave four or more dead or wounded — shootingtracker.com and gunviolencearchive.org — depend on news accounts and are not official. Nonetheless, they give an indication of the widespread nature of such episodes. Since January, there have been at least 354 such cases in about 220 cities in 47 states, according to shootingtracker.com.

In November, six people were killed, five of them shot to death at a campsite in East Texas; 17 were wounded in a shootout as a crowd watched the filming of a music video in New Orleans; and four died, including twin 5-month-olds, in an episode of domestic violence in Jacksonville, Fla. So far this week, five people were wounded Sunday morning in a shooting in Kankakee, Ill., and a shooting Wednesday, before the San Bernardino attack, left one woman dead and three men wounded in Savannah, Ga.

But this is America, dammit. Thoughts and prayers and very brief moments of silence are all we have to offer when what we have to offer is controlled by Republican politicians and their gun lobby benefactors. Which it is.