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As a hunter who has owned firearms since adolescence without breaking any laws or feeling under-gunned, I think I am equipped to offer a modest proposal that could produce a safer America and also break the maniacal hold of the National Rifle Association on the nation’s recreational shooters, not to mention Congress. My proposal is simply that we revert to the gun laws that prevailed in the United States around 1960. From a public-safety standpoint, that was far from a perfect world. The cheap revolvers called “Saturday night specials” ruled the night in many cities. Loopholes as to the sale and registration of long arms allowed the importation of the mail-order rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill President John F. Kennedy in 1963. (Howell Raines, 9/1)

Another day, another mass shooting. We grieve for Odessa, Tex., and we grieve for America. The aftermath of every mass shooting follows a now-routine pattern: Feverish coverage will be followed by politicians and pundits engaging in a predictable conversation about gun-safety legislation. All of which we know by now. Of course, we need universal background checks; we need to close all loopholes; we need to outlaw bump stocks; and we need to outlaw assault weapons and the bullets needed to shoot them. But politicians trotting out various forms of I-will-do-this-or-that neither gets to the heart of the matter nor breaks the logjam that has made this horrific and uniquely American problem so intractable. (Williamson, 9/2)

Virginia is one of four states facing legislative elections this fall, and the only one where control of both chambers, each run by Republicans holding tissue-thin margins, hangs in the balance. Small wonder, then, to see one of the most vulnerable Republicans, now clinging to a seat in Northern Virginia, struggling to do damage control on a key issue: guns. The state has suffered its share of firearms-induced carnage: 32 people massacred in 2007 by a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech; an additional dozen killed this May by a shooter at a municipal building in Virginia Beach. (8/31)

If you look at the numbers, we're looking at an active shooter every other week in this country," said Christopher Combs, the lead FBI agent in charge of federal resources assisting in the investigation of Saturday's deadly mass shooting in Texas. His chilling comments about the state of violence in America come after seven people were killed and at least 22 injured when a gunman opened fire with an AR-type assault rifle along a West Texas stretch of highway. (Josh Campbell, 9/2)

Exactly how many dead Texans does it take for Gov. Greg Abbott to actually do something about the epidemic of gun violence sweeping his state? So far, no body count is too big for our governor, who seems determined to do exactly nothing. We Texans love to swagger, brag and boast that we are biggest, most and first. In the uniquely American horror story of mass shootings, we are closing in on all three. (Richard Parker, 9/1)