Republicans offer wide array of reasons for inaction after Sandy Hook massacre

Congressional Republicans are starting to step up to let the public know what they'll do to prevent more events like the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And while Republicans are sad and serious about it and say they'd like to prevent mass shootings, they certainly won't be joining Democrats in calling for changes in gun laws. Not an assault weapons ban, not a ban on the high-capacity magazines that put the mass in mass shootings.

Virginia representative and incoming House Judiciary Committee Chair Robert Goodlatte:

'We're going to take a look at what happened there and what can be done to help avoid it in the future, but gun control is not going to be something that I would support,' he said.

North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx:

'There are just evil people in the world and nothing you are going to do is going to prevent evil sometimes from occurring,' she said. 'There ought to be a debate on the whole thing that happened, the full complement, not just guns.'

There are just evil people in the world and there's no reason to consider why they kill so many more people in the United States than in other wealthy industrialized nations. Not a question worth asking! Maybe we're just that much more evil as a nation!

Florida Rep. Tom Rooney:

'If we can come to any agreement where we can figure out ways to do that, we should do it. And whether it deals with mental health issues or anything else that would help avoid that situation from happening again, I think that would be a good thing for us to talk about,' he said.

So ... is that a call for increased mental health funding? No? Just a dodge? Yeah, I thought so. It's not just House members dodging, either. Senate Republicans are doing the same.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham:

'The worst thing we can do is create false sense of security. Every bad event in the world can't be fixed by government action,' he said. 'The question for me is how to prevent mass murder?'

Basically, then, Americans should have absolutely no sense of security because it might turn out to be false, and we should be asking how to prevent mass murder but the government probably doesn't have a role. Duly noted.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio:

'I also think it's important to point out that gun laws have limitations as to what they can accomplish,' he said. 'Criminals by definition do not follow the law.'

Why bother with laws at all, then, if criminals are just going to break them?

The deaths of 26 people, 20 of them children, are unfortunate and all, but Republicans will not be doing anything about it. They will be pretending to talk about mental health, without for one instant being willing to improve the American mental health system or its funding. They will be talking about violent video games. They will not even be talking about the specific types of weapons that make it possible for one man to kill dozens of people at a time. And the next time it happens, and the next, and the next, they'll continue to treat it as a mystery, evil without explanation or aid.