Now's the time for Americans to stand up for sanity. Now is the time for Americans to seize back control of their government. Now is the time for Americans to declare that the National Rifle Association and its gun-industry overlords will no longer hold us hostage to a bogus, exaggerated interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Not even the slaughter of 20 young children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was enough to dislodge the NRA's stranglehold on Congress and prompt level-headed legislators to rethink civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. If dead first-graders weren't enough, what level of carnage will it take?

On Sunday in Orlando, the nation's most deadly single-gunman mass shooting left 49 victims dead and 53 others wounded, some grievously. It happened because gun laws permit individuals with highly questionable backgrounds, including a man twice investigated by the FBI for terrorism links, to purchase firearms designed specifically to kill human beings.

Missouri's Legislature is good with that. It wants more. Senate Bill 656, which Gov. Jay Nixon's must veto, would allow permitless concealed-carry and ease stand-your-ground restrictions. This despite the skyrocketing gun-homicide rate that has turned some St. Louis streets into a killing zone. The city has had 82 homicides, and police have seized more than 900 guns this year alone.

The gun culture is consuming our country, driven by fear and fantasy and enabled by cowardly elected officials. They don't dare stand up to the NRA because they know that, individually, they are no match for the billion-dollar lobbying and donation machine that the NRA and its gun-manufacturing financiers represent.

How scared are they? Senate Republicans are balking at legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would merely stop allowing gun sales to suspected terrorists. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., had to filibuster for 15 hours on Wednesday just to get a hearing.

Second Amendment absolutism

The NRA allows nothing, certainly not facts, to override its interpretation of the Second Amendment. It has consistently opposed common-sense measures such as prohibiting people on federal no-fly lists — that is, suspected terrorists — from purchasing firearms. If someone is deemed too dangerous to fly, doesn't it follow that he's also too dangerous to own weapons that can kill en masse?

Collectively, Congress and right-minded state legislators can — and must — summon the courage to enact sane, meaningful gun-control legislation. That process must start now. Americans who want change must make it politically dangerous to oppose gun control. The gun sanity lobby must be as relentless, well-funded and as passionate as the gun lobby.

We've watched the same Groundhog Day process unfold far too many times: A horrific mass shooting occurs. Columbine High School and the movie theater in Colorado. Fort Hood. San Bernardino. Newtown. Virginia Tech. Six deaths in the attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. The list goes on and on.

Each time, the nation reels in horror. Each time, outraged leaders appeal for this, please, to be the last. Then the NRA mobilizes and declares hell no. Gun sales jump because the NRA stokes fears: They're coming to take your guns.

The news cycle plays out. Other big events take over. The outrage dies down, and attention goes back to really important things, like football, computer games, iPhones and "The Tonight Show." It usually only takes a week or so.

If this is ever going to stop, it's time to say no, by God, no. To punish the craven politicians. To divest investment accounts of gun stocks. To get serious and stay serious.

Celebrating gun culture

Television dramas and video games celebrate gun culture. Our children grow up taking it for granted. Missouri has a gubernatorial candidate who thinks it's appropriate, even after Orlando's bloodshed, to air an ad in which he shoots an assault weapon and sets off an explosion.

Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri's Republican senator, has received more than $60,000 from the NRA since 1998, making him the No. 1 congressional recipient of NRA funding, according to The Washington Post. It's not just a Republican thing. Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat running for governor, also has held the NRA's coveted A-rating and received its endorsement in 2012.

Americans should be able to own firearms. But the Second Amendment contains the words "well-regulated," meaning firearms ownership is not an unrestricted right. The general public cannot own a working grenade launcher or M1A1 Abrams main battle tank.

But in many states they can amass enormous arsenals of military-style weaponry and ammunition. They can walk the streets with openly displayed long guns, effectively terrorizing the rest of us, all in the name of a bogus reading of the Second Amendment. Congress doesn't dare question it.

Americans must demand a return to common-sense gun control. Now's the time, not just because of the Orlando tragedy but because it's an election year in which the GOP's grip on Congress is growing tenuous.

The presidential candidacy of Donald Trump has so shaken the GOP base, many politicians are doing whatever they can to escape his taint. Swing-state Republicans are particularly worried.

Lawmakers must be made to understand that the NRA doesn't represent American values. On background checks, it doesn't even represent its own membership. Its agenda is to protect sales and profits of the nation's biggest arms manufacturers. Americans are tired of being their hostages.

Demand common sense

Voters must be equally insistent at the state level. Don't allow the NRA to dictate the rules and override common sense. Missouri does not need the insanity of SB 656.

Common sense means denying access to firearms when the purchaser is not mentally stable or poses such a security risk that he or she isn't allowed to board an airplane. Common sense means background checks every time a gun changes hands. Common sense means halting the ownership of semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. Normal people do not need these items; mass killers do.

Common sense means electing representatives who respond to facts, not fear. Who exercise reasonable judgment. Who can look with shock and horror at attacks like Orlando or Sandy Hook and do everything they can — everything — to stop it from happening again.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST LOUIS POST DISPATCH