The flag over the White House returned to the top of its pole only at sunset on Monday after fluttering at half-staff to honor victims of the Atlanta massacre. Within hours, President Joe Biden ordered the Stars and Stripes lowered to mark another massacre.

In a macabre sign of familiar activity beginning to resume in America, gun rampages are back. On Monday night, a lone killer ended another 10 lives in a supermarket in Colorado --the seventh mass shooting in seven days, in a state already scarred by past mass killings. And Washington quickly retreated to its old frustrating spot.

Democrats and gun control advocates are demanding “common sense” reform to make it harder for criminals and mentally ill people to get their hands on deadly weapons, and they’re rebuking conservatives who offer “thoughts and prayers” but block reform. Republicans reply that firearms reforms will make it harder for people to protect themselves from crime, and rile up gun owners by falsely claiming that precautions like background checks mean Democrats aim to ban guns.

America’s attitude toward guns is one of the hardest things for foreigners to understand. Why should someone’s freedom to bear arms supersede another person’s liberty to shop for groceries without being gunned down?

In the frontier mentality of many in America’s heartland, gun ownership is a rite of passage, an expression of God-given freedoms and a quintessential symbol of self-reliance and independence from government. In the other, more suburban, liberal half of the country, citizens wonder why anyone should possess a fast-firing weapon of war that can wipe out groups of people — and school kids, as history has repeatedly shown — within seconds. They point to nations with tougher gun laws, where massacres are rare.

That gulf of perception helps explain why gun reform always fails. For decades, the existential attachment to the Second Amendment among conservatives has been more intense than the desire of liberals to enforce reform. There are signs the intensity of reformers is catching up. But opponents can wield Senate rules that kill gun control laws by requiring a supermajority for passage. Even with the current Democratic monopoly on power in the presidency and Congress, prospects are poor for whatever modest changes reach the 50-50 Senate.

The White House flag will be raised back to full height eventually. But it won’t be long before it’s tethered at half-staff again.

The world and America

Israel held its fourth election in two years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin got vaccinated.

And volcanic ash shut down Guatemala’s international airport.

Meanwhile in America, the Boulder shooting suspect was charged with 10 counts of murder.

Joe Biden will cancel $1 billion in student debt for misled students.

And Prince Harry got a job in Silicon Valley.

'What are we doing? What are we doing other than reflecting and praying?'

It’s possible that highly limited measures to expand background checks for commercial gun sales could squeeze through Congress. But reforms need the support of Republicans who have no political incentive to go big.

The futile stalemate and the ritual airing of arguments destined to go nowhere were in evidence at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, which by grim coincidence had been called before the Colorado shootings to discuss gun reform.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois could barely overcome his frustration that the US cannot muster the will to end what he called “another pandemic in America called guns.” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas touted a bill that would make some minor changes to background checks for gun purchasers, but opponents say it’s a smokescreen to halt real reform.

Durbin: “It just keeps coming at us, we're numb to the numbers, unless we are personally touched. It's just another statistic. That has got to stop this committee, this hearing. I hope it will open a conversation about constitutional common-sense ways to reduce gun violence in America.”

“We can do this. The fact that guns are lawful products with legitimate uses must not stop us from taking action to reduce gun deaths. Look at opioids. They have a lawful legitimate use, but Congress recognized the public health catastrophe that resulted from the misuse of opioids, and we did something.”

Cruz: “I don't apologize for thoughts or prayers. I will lift up in prayer people who are hurting. And I believe in the power of prayer, and the contempt of Democrats for prayers is an odd sociological thing.

“Let's target the bad guys, the felons, the fugitives, those with mental disease. Let's put them in jail. Let's stop them from getting guns. Let's not scapegoat innocent, law-abiding citizens and let's not target their constitutional rights.”

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