Can the University of California Santa Barbara/Isla Vista massacre change the way the US thinks about guns? In a word, no. The demand by Richard Martinez, grieving father of one of the shooting victims, that politicians “get to work” on gun control earned this bit of introspection from Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher of Election 2008 fame: “As harsh as this sounds, your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza gets straight to the brutal point: If the attempted assassination of a member of Congress in Arizona and the murder of young children and adults in a Connecticut elementary school did not galvanize Congress and force a national re-evaluation of federal gun control policies, the grief of one more father over the death of his child will not “one move the needle…in any meaningful way.”

Meanwhile, Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo,moved to further tighten up the Bay State’s strict gun laws that would restrict private gun sales and allow local police chiefs to determine if a potential gun buyer is “suitable.”  But illegal guns are easy enough to obtain, and critics argue that the measure does little to affect violence that plagues some urban neighborhoods and gives more discretion than necessary to local police.

The new proposals also include background check provisions that would make it difficult for mentally ill people to buy guns legally. Yet DeLeo’s plan dispenses with a game changer that would have made Bay State laws exponentially tougher. Gone is the one gun per month policy championed by Rep. David Linsky, Sen. Cynthia Creem, and Gov. Deval Patrick.

But piecemeal state-by-state reforms only take the country so far. A Boston Globe editorial about the California massacre invokes the First Amendment, but says nothing about the Second. But it does offer this observation: “The Constitution still offers enough latitude for a mature society to reasonably assess its vulnerabilities and address its deficiencies.”

In an oblique way, the Globe is gets to the crux of the problem, the absence of serious debate about changing the Constitution. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens takes on the Second Amendment conundrum in his new book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. He believes that there is nothing in the Constitution that precludes placing limits on semi-automatic weapons of the type used in Newtown and Isla Vista.

Stevens, who stepped down from the high court in 2010, proposes restoring what he views as the original intent of Founding Fathers by amending the Constitution to clarify that gun ownership should be restricted to individuals “when serving in the militia.”

Stevens, of course, is a liberal jurist and not a politician. In American politics, there is nothing more sacrosanct than the Second Amendment. Since Newtown, there has been no countervailing groundswell of public pressure on Congress to shake up, much less topple, the National Rifle Association from its perch as the sole arbiter of the US gun control debate. In the current political climate, talking about changing the Second Amendment would earn many politicians a one-way ticket to permanent irrelevance.

When Martinez admonished “craven, irresponsible politicians” to do “something,” he wasn’t thinking of Robert DeLeo.  Chris Cillizza nails it: Martinez’s devastating grief will not persuade Washington power brokers take measures to limit gun violence-unless the California criminal defense lawyer can match his raw exhortations with concentrated political power.  

–GABRIELLE GURLEY  

BEACON HILL

A bill barring municipal candidates from appearing on the ballot if they are not in compliance with campaign finance regulations becomes law. The bill was proposed after former Lawrence mayor William Lantigua ran for reelection while failing to file campaign finance reports and owing a $5,000 fine, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Howie Carr catches up with political fixer Michael Goldman: “If the Bulgers despise him, how bad can he be?”

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

The lawyer for Boston mega-landlord Anwar Faisal, who, with his vermin-infested and code-violation ridden apartments, was Exhibit A in the recent Globe series on unscrupulous property owners who take advantage of student renters, tells a City Council hearing that his client is an upright businessman who has been badly maligned.

The head of the Fall River water and sewer department pleaded with the City Council to reconsider their rejection of increased rates, which some termed political gamesmanship with the mayor, because it could mean layoffs and state intervention.

The Lawrence City Council delays action on a residency requirement for city workers when two city councilors who indicated their support for the proposal called in sick, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

A task force recommends that Detroit spend $2 billion demolishing 40,000 abandoned homes to stop the spread of bight.

ELECTIONS

Shirley Leung says Charlie Baker would cut his ties to General Catalyst if he knows what’s good for him, but she’s not sure he does.

Democratic incumbents are beginning to embrace the Affordable Care Act as a campaign talking point.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Boston developer John Hynes is taking some lessons learned in an ambitious city-building project he was involved with in South Korea and applying them to projects in the Seaport district.

Fidelity Investments is among a handful of companies behind a new effort to fund financial services startups.

Google builds 100 self-driving car prototypes and plans to launch a pilot use project in California within two years. The company also unveils a YouTube video about its self-driving car project.

Long-term unemployment is having a devastating psychological impact on many Americans, a CommonWealth Voices piece asserts.

HEALTH CARE

The federal Department of Health and Human Services has broken down the more than 8 million people who enrolled in health care plans under the Affordable Care Act and the report finds, among other things, women outnumber men and 80 percent of enrollees qualify for financial assistance to pay their premiums.

TRANSPORTATION

The MBTA keeps expanding, but its police force doesn’t keep pace, CommonWealth reports.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The Obama administration is preparing to issue greenhouse gas emission targets for each state, but details about the targets are being kept secret for now, Governing reports.

Local officials and critics of Pilgrim power plant are upset that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not require owners of nuclear facilities to speed up transfer of spent fuel rods from pools to dry cask storage.

New research suggests the term global warming is more effective than the term climate change in spurring Americans to address the problem, Time reports.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Greater Boston tries to make sense of the surprise guilty plea to first degree murder by Jared Remy, son of Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy.

Prosecutors open the trial against a former regional highway boss from Worcester who is accused of steering contracts to a company in which he had a secret interest. Defense attorneys claim their client did nothing wrong, the Telegram & Gazette reports.

The state’s drunken boating law, considered among the toughest in the country, appears to be rarely enforced with only a handful of arrests each year, according to the Patriot Ledger.

Brockton police launched a drug raid on a home owned by a Brockton city councilor that he says he rented out to a cousin who gave him back the keys a week ago.

MEDIA

The Patriot Ledger is the latest newspaper to institute a paywall.

PASSINGS

Maya Angelou , acclaimed memoirist and poet, has died at age 86.