15 Episodes of The West Wing We Need Now More Than Ever

3.05 War Crimes

In the wake of a shooting in a Texas church that left a 9-year-old girl dead, President Bartlet debates gun control laws with Vice President Hoynes, a gun advocate and Texas born and raised. The gunman in the shooting had obtained the gun legally, was registered and allowed to carry a concealed weapon – and still, he shot an elderly man and killed a small child in a church. Bartlet is angry, rightfully so, and argues that the second amendment was written long before police forces, that citizen militias are no longer necessary. The weight of gun related deaths has become too heavy, and too frequent.

Ring any bells?

And yet, the debate persists, despite the rate of school shootings and automatic weapon related deaths skyrocketing even since this episode aired. A New York Times article from July 2016 summed it up accurately at the time.

"In the United States, the death rate from gun homicides is about 31 per million people — the equivalent of 27 people shot dead every day of the year. The homicides include losses from mass shootings, like Sunday’s Orlando attack, or the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting last December. And of course, they also include the country’s vastly more common single-victim killings."

It’s an issue that needs to be taken seriously, especially in the wake of tragedies such as Newtown and Orlando and so many more. It’s an issue that Trump cannot and should not skirt around – the safety of us all rely on it.