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Once again, President Obama has used a horrific mass shooting to make an argument for gun control. Once again, in making the argument, he did not know whether the gunman legally owned a gun or not. And once again, Obama didn't mention a single specific policy that would "prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America."
And although it was reported Friday that Chris Harper Mercer or a family member had legally bought his weapons from a federal gun dealer, what the 26-year-old did at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., on Thursday was unconscionable. The president was right to be angry and distressed at such madness.
But a leader doesn't stand at the bully pulpit time after time - the statement was his 15th in the wake of a mass shooting - uttering empty phrases. One of those - "It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun" - particularly rankled.
Obama knows full well gun control laws already prevent felons, convicted domestic violence perpetrators, people who use drugs unlawfully and illegal immigrants from owning guns. Meanwhile, the majority of mass shooters can legally buy guns because, at the time, none of the disqualifying criteria applies to them. In other words, until they pull the trigger, they are no more of a threat than the old lady next door.
So the president's "common-sense gun regulations" - strengthening enforcement of restrictions already on the book, making databases more complete or requiring background checks for private guns transfers and sales by federally licensed firearm dealers - would change the landscape very little.
Obama also knows people who want guns to commit crimes will get them, no matter what. Witness, after all, Chicago and Washington, D.C., with among the strictest gun control laws and among the highest gun crime rates.
The president's rhetoric also insulted people of faith - "our thoughts and prayers are not enough" - and gave himself permission for politicizing the shooting. "This is something we should politicize," he said.
Ten people are dead in Oregon because of the actions of a twisted individual who used a gun in committing his crime. But no solution to this will come from worn-out words that only blame and shame.