Any rational person would have thought that after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 children and six adults were mowed down in a hail of bullets, this nation would finally adopt reasonable laws to keep guns out of the hands of psychopaths.

But since then, to Washington’s great shame, there have been 34 fatal school shootings, including Thursday’s rampage at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College, where a 26-year-old, heavily armed madman wearing body armor stormed into a classroom and shot nine people to death before he was killed during a gunfight with police.

“Somehow this has become routine,” a furious and frustrated President Barack Obama said shortly after the bloody spree, in which seven others sustained gunshot wounds. “The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. We’ve become numb to this ... It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get a gun.”

As we know too well, it often is just that simple, because cowardly lawmakers, bullied by the gun lobby, refuse to consider federal legislation that would close loopholes and adequately prevent deranged and dangerous individuals from acquiring firearms.

This newspaper, which has long advocated for stricter gun control, urges Congress to heed the president’s strongly worded directive and pass prudent laws. Polls consistently show the majority of Americans support a sensible screening process that would prohibit violent felons, people with restraining orders and those treated for mental illness from owning guns.

As the president articulated, any civilized nation has a responsibility to protect its citizens.

"When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we work to make communities safer,” Mr. Obama said. "When roads are unsafe, we fix them. To reduce auto fatalities, we have seat belt laws because we know it saves lives. The notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon ... It doesn't make sense."

In pressing for reasonable but necessary legislation, lawmakers – and those now campaigning for president – must ignore the drumbeat pounded out by the National Rifle Association and other special-interest groups.They must recognize that gun control must not be a political issue, but an American one.

Foes of gun reform certainly are not helped by such Second Amendment diehards as Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County in Oregon, who is overseeing the investigation into Thursday’s shooting.

Mr. Hanlin nonsensically declared that he would never utter the name of the shooter, Chris Harper Mercer, as if doing so would elevate him to something other than a troubled man who witnesses said shot victims in the head if they admitted to being Christian.

More troubling, the sheriff had written a letter to Vice President Joe Biden soon after the Sandy Hook tragedy, when Congress debated – and ultimately rejected – new, tougher controls.

Mr. Hanlin pledged that he and his deputies would refuse to enforce new gun-control restrictions "offending the constitutional rights of my citizens." Earlier this year he also testified before an Oregon legislative committee against an initiative that would have required background checks on private, person-to-person gun sales.

Sheriff Hanlin needs to be reminded that he is not above the law; he is the law.

And the law must be strengthened, not held hostage by lobbyists and their misguided followers.