". . . it sends the message that the right to keep and bear arms is more important than people dying from gun violence."

And there you have it Eddie. For a lot of gun rights advocates, in a nation with an annual average of 30,000 firearm deaths, mass shootings are a statistical outlier, and just a sad and tragic part of the cost of freedom in gun-stoked America.

The best estimate I have read is that universal background checks, organized and managed in a federal database might reduce gun violence by up to 2%. Coordination between mental health care and law enforcement might reduce it by another 5 to 10%, depending on what "coordination" means and results in. The upshot (no pun intended) is that in a nation of 360 million Americans with over 300 million firearms, gun related violence and death will occur. Period. That ain't gonna' change without outright gun seizures nationwide. Feel-good legislation isn't going to feel good for long when it is obvious that it doesn't prevent and significantly reduce gun violence.