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鈥淭his only happens in this country and nowhere else,鈥� Murphy, a Democrat, said, before begging his colleagues to join him and do something, anything, to try to reduce mass shootings.

He was defining American exceptionalism, though not in the way that most politicians use the phrase.

Those two words 鈥� American exceptionalism 鈥� are most often spoken by Republicans during an election year. They are intended to evoke a certain pride in the nation.

But in the context of what just happened in , the phrase reveals the seedy underbelly of a nation paralyzed by gun violence. Nobody mows down 19 innocent children and two teachers like an American 18-year-old with a weapon of war in his hands. That鈥檚 not hyperbole. It鈥檚 the simple truth.

Whether it鈥檚 10 people in a Buffalo grocery store killed by a troubled racist with an assault rifle or children in a southwest Texas town in a state where an 18-year-old can buy an AR-15 on his birthday, no country in the world suffers through mass shootings like the U.S. of A.

We can鈥檛 even bury the dead from one mass shooting before we move on to the next. We are the mass shooting capital of the world.

Gay people at a club in Orlando: dead.

Concert goers in Vegas: dead.

Movie buffs in Aurora: dead.

Jews worshipping in Pittsburgh: dead.

Black people buying food at a grocery store in Buffalo: dead.

Schoolchildren in Columbine, Newtown and Uvalde: dead.

This is what American exceptionalism looks like. We let mentally troubled men access weapons of war that would be next to impossible to obtain in any other country. Too often, they go on killing sprees. We think and pray for a few moments, or hours or days, to honor the victims.

And then we don鈥檛 do a damn thing 鈥� except, perhaps, make it easier to get guns. That鈥檚 because too many American Republicans and a handful of Democrats are owned by the National Rifle Association, and they refuse to honor dead kids by doing anything to stop the next massacre from happening.

There are guns to be sold. Campaign coffers to be filled. Conspiracy theories to spread. Whataboutisms to deflect from the cruel reality of the bodies piling up from mass shootings year after year.

That鈥檚 what will happen after this column is published. The NRA-funded politicians and their favorite TV and radio talking heads will pick away at my use of 鈥渁ssault rifle鈥� or any argument for the use of American laws to limit the spread of gun violence. They will, as U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., did, about the killer to rile up extremists. Background checks won鈥檛 work, they will say. Or red flag laws. Or keeping guns from domestic violence perpetrators. Or assault weapons or ghost weapons bans.

The U.S. has, by far, more mass shootings than any other country in the world, in part because we have more guns, and weaker gun laws, than other countries.

That鈥檚 because in other countries 鈥� take England and Australia, for instance 鈥� their lawmakers responded to the horror of mass shootings by passing laws that limited the ability of people to obtain weapons of war. After a horrific mass shooting in 1996, Australia responded by increasing permitting rules and banning semi-automatic weapons, among other reforms in the . There has been only one mass shooting there in the past two decades.

America could do that. If we were truly exceptional.

In his speech to the nation on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden desperately pleaded with his fellow Americans to join him in doing something to end the carnage:

鈥淎s a nation, we have to ask,鈥� Biden said: 鈥淲hen, in God鈥檚 name, will we stand up to the gun lobby?鈥�

I thought that would happen after Columbine, more than two decades ago. That shooting happened in my hometown of Littleton, Colorado, in a school I visited many times. I wanted to believe that America had the courage to answer that question with some bipartisan courage to stand up to the murder of children. Back then, even the NRA believed in universal background checks. But since then, the gun manufacturers and their partners have wreaked legislative destruction. They win every time. They win with fear and lies. And the result is more guns, more mass shootings, more death, more empty thoughts and prayers.

We did do one thing after Columbine: We taught two generations of students how to do armed intruder drills. On Wednesday morning, the Rockwood School District, where my youngest children go to school, sent out a note intended to offer calm to parents worried about school shootings. Similar notes likely were sent from schools across the country. The note explained how well prepared the schools were in case of a mass shooting. Our children and teachers are well trained in intruder alerts, the note said. Our schools have experienced teams of crisis counselors.

The note didn鈥檛 calm me. It made me angry. We do nothing to stop school shootings 鈥� but apparently, we鈥檙e really good at easing the pain once the bodies are strewn across the bloody floor. This is what American exceptionalism looks like in 2022.