I heard Corey Booker on NPR this morning on my way to work. I like Booker. I was impressed with him during his presidential campaign. The first half of the interview, though, he was deflecting and not really answering the questions or saying anything substantive, just like all politicians. Then he said something along the lines of, "Congress can't really do anything because if they do they will be voted out of office. The political will of the people is driving this issue, just like every other issue, so it's the voters who have to change first, then their Congressmen will follow suit." First of all, I think he is absolutely right, as fucked up as it is. Politicians elected to Congress are not there to do what's good for the country. That's not just a cynical statement on my part, it's the reality. Because of democracy, people elected to Congress are really just whores to the voters and their campaign contributors, probably not in that order. They don't lead, they don't do anything proactively, they don't do anything to risk being re-elected, which means they try not to do anything politically unpopular. The big problem with this, of course, is that sometimes we have to do shit as a country that people don't like. Because of where we are as a country, "what people want" should not be the guiding principle, as we have seen, because what people want is sometimes bad.
There isn't going to be a huge long-term grass roots movement that shows politicians that the political will of the people has changed enough that it is safe to enact meaningful gun reforms. Congress isn't going to take the lead and do the right thing because it would be political suicide for the ones who matter (namely 10 Republican senators). Long story short, ain't nothing going to change. More children will die.