Founding Principles

The Paris attacks killed 130 and injured about 360. Anti-Muslim bigots, generally, were driven into a tizzy of cowardice over 130 dead Frenchmen. And all the Republican candidates came out favoring actions in stark opposition to America's founding principles.

As of this writing (statistics suggest the following figures will be obsolete by day's end), 462 people have died (1314 wounded) in 355 mass shootings this year right here in America. And those same candidates insist that even sane, reasonable gun control measures, favored by a steep majority of the population, must be rejected, because any control at all would be in stark opposition to America's founding principles.

I do understand that gun control issues are more nuanced than the left will concede. What I don't understand is the failure of our national risk assessment skills. Is it really so difficult to distinguish the actual, larger threat? Or is it that bigotry is the MSG of fear, elevating mild worry far beyond its measure?