As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump took the debate stage Tuesday night, Kentucky law enforcement officers swept the woods for a former Army reservist. They suspected Joseph Couch, 32, of opening fire this week on highway traffic with an AR-15 outside the town of London.

The week before, a 14-year-old student opened fire with a similar weapon at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, killing two students and two teachers and injuring nine others. It was the 45th school shooting this year, and the deadliest, according to CNN .

The twin mass shootings easily could have prompted the ABC News debate moderators to question how the candidates would stem gun violence.

Instead, neither the candidates nor the moderators discussed gun violence at all a glaring omission at a time when the Supreme Courts increasingly robust interpretation of the Second Amendment promises to hamstring any reformist agenda.