Editorial: Time to get serious about gun violence

Another tragedy took place over the weekend when a man walked into a restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, and opened fire for no apparent reason.

How many of these tragedies have to take place before we as a nation and a society will recognize that common-sense gun control is part of the solution?

How many futures have to be destroyed? How many families have to suffer the loss of loved ones? How many innocents have to die?

These tragedies aren't restricted to the wave of mass slayings that repeatedly grab our attention.

Gun violence claims lives and futures on our streets every day.

America's rate of gun deaths is eight times higher than Canada's, according to a study by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations. Twenty-seven times higher than Denmark. Our death rate due to guns is starkly higher even than nations with high levels of poverty such as Bangladesh and Laos, according to a report by National Public Radio.

Greater gun control is not the sole solution. It's only part of one. It needs to be part of a broad approach that also involves strengthening our mental health efforts, eradicating poverty and injustice, beefing up law enforcement and much more. Certainly, common-sense gun control is an essential ingredient in that mix.

In that regard, we, like so many others, are disappointed in Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto last month of legislation that would have required gun dealers in Illinois to be licensed.

Rauner said the law would be ineffective and called on legislative leaders to create a work group instead.

We tend to join state Rep. Kathleen Willis of Northlake in her skepticism of Rauner's motives. She described the veto as "a political ploy," and, given the governor's documented efforts to cut spending for mental health services, we can't help but wonder whether he is serious about reducing violence in the state beyond mouthing platitudes about it.

"While the governor talks a good game," State Rep. Jonathan Carroll of Buffalo Grove aptly points out, "his absence from the working group meetings speaks volumes."

The General Assembly should, as a first step, override Rauner's veto of the gun dealer licensing legislation.

And Rauner, if he wants to be taken seriously next November, should get on the right side of history, the side of all potential victims of gun violence.