Due to its ideological commitment to self-reliance over governmental solutions, and its close ties to fossil fuel interests, the GOP is incapable of proposing and supporting any viable approaches to climate change. As a result, people will die in hurricanes and wildfires at an increasing rate, and the GOP will have nothing to offer them except thoughts and prayers. They are just collateral damage–unfortunate, but a price worth paying.
The situation with guns is exactly the same. Yesterday’s Texas school massacre demonstrated yet again that a good guy with a gun–and there are millions of them in Texas–won’t stop a bad guy with a gun until he has killed plenty of innocent people. What will come of this? Nothing, because the kids are just collateral damage in the eyes of Republican lawmakers. Since guns are right-wing icons, not objects, reactionaries will never give them up, no matter how high the price, unless, of course, the left arms, too, in which case all bets are off.