Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Or as “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert said, “Insanity is changing nothing and then pretending that something will change.”

Either way, the latest mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., confirms that the United States is suffering with a mental condition when it comes to gun violence. As a nation, we are shocked and horrified each time a gunman walks into a classroom, a movie theater, a church, a recruitment center, an office building, a strip mall or a restaurant and opens fire. And, yet, we are paralyzed by inaction.

Ask the families impacted by mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Newtown, Conn., and Columbine, Colo.; in Aurora, Colo.; in Charleston, S.C., and Oak Creek, Wis.; in Chattanooga, Tenn.; at the Washington Navy Yard; at Tucson, Ariz.; and Santa Monica, Calif.

Despite the fact that lives are wiped out, families and communities suffer and the American psyche is damaged by these senseless acts, we remain in a state of denial — or perhaps a National Rifle Association-induced stranglehold — that keeps us from taking action to try and prevent another mass tragedy involving gun violence.

For the 11th time since taking office in 2009, President Obama has offered condolences in the wake of a mass shooting in the nation. But as the president said after last week’s massacre in Oregon, thoughts and prayers aren’t enough.

It’s time for action.

We call for members of Congress to act now to approve meaningful laws to curb gun violence.

We have little hope that the Virginia General Assembly would do the right thing and pass tougher laws to prevent gun deaths.

But it matters little if certain cities pass tough gun laws — mentally ill people, criminals, terrorists and others bent on ruining lives can simply go to the next town, county or state and purchase a gun.

We need tough, uniform measures that would apply to every state, city, town and hamlet in the nation — from Smith Mountain Lake, where a disturbed former Roanoke television reporter killed two of his former colleagues on live television in August and wounded the woman being interviewed, to the Oregon timber capital of Roseburg.

As a first step, we demand that Congress remove its ban on government-funded research, including data collection, on gun violence.

Through the Dickey Amendment passed in 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost millions of dollars researching the effects of firearms ownership on public health. The amendment, backed by the NRA and a conservative Congress, explicitly stated that “no funds for injury prevention and control” may be used “to advocate or promote gun control.”

Not only did the CDC’s research grind to a halt, but Republicans also in 2011 applied the ban to research at the National Institutes of Health.

In June, after the massacre of nine African-Americans at a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., House Speaker John Boehner defended the lack of government research by saying “a gun is not a disease.”

Another amendment, initially enacted in 2003, also limits federal firearms officials’ ability to share gun trace data with law enforcement, policymakers and researchers interested in combating urban violence.

The insanity must stop.

Nonpartisan data collection and research will help even the most unbending of lawmakers — as well as the public — to have unvarnished statistics and information about the trends and causes of gun violence in order to make more rational national policy decisions to stop it.

Recent research by the Harvard School of Public Health charting mass shootings since 1982 shows that the incidence of such violent episodes is increasing.

From 1982 to 2011, mass shootings with multiple victims happened every 200 days on average, according to the study. But since 2011, the rate of mass shootings has tripled, taking place every 64 days on average.

We call on Virginia’s congressional delegation, as well as those across the nation, to support a ban on assault weapons, to require background checks before all firearms sales and to enhance mental health programs, all efforts called for by President Obama.

We also call for federal lawmakers to fast track and approve the Responsible Transfer of Firearms Act introduced by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Sen. Kaine’s bill holds people responsible if they sell or transfer a firearm to someone who is barred by federal law from possessing firearms.

Critics have assailed his bill as a backdoor attempt to have universal background checks for gun purchasers and an attempt to stop private sales of guns.

We ask: What is so wrong with having universal background checks for firearms purchases?

Let’s stop pretending that change will come even when we do nothing.

In this nation of out-of-control violence and blindness to the insanity, the death that a law like Sen. Kaine’s could stop could be yours or that of your loved ones.