( CNN ) -- On Tuesday , a man identified by authorities as Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded a school bus as it stopped to drop off children and demanded two students . Police say that when the bus driver , Charles Albert Poland , refused , Dykes -- who was arrested last month , accused of shooting at neighbors in a dispute over a speed bump -- shot Poland four times , killing him . As I 'm writing this , he is in a standoff with police , who say he 's holding someone 's 5-year-old boy hostage in his underground doomsday bunker . Also on Tuesday , 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was gunned down in Chicago , allegedly by someone who thought she and her friends were members of a rival gang . It was raining , and the teens were standing underneath a shelter in a park . A park that is about a mile north of the home of President Obama 's home . And just a little over a week ago , Pendleton was a participant in Obama 's inauguration festivities as a member of the King College Prep band . That 's just one day in the life of America . ... I wonder what tomorrow will bring . A Pew Research Center poll found that 85 % of Americans back a universal background check to limit the ability of convicted felons and the mentally ill to get a gun -- and yet we wait . On Wednesday , the NFL announced that the Super Bowl pregame show will feature a performance of `` America the Beautiful '' by 26 students and faculty members from Sandy Hook Elementary School . The Sandy Hook massacre was supposed to change things , change us . And yet we wait . Even while the NFL announced its gesture , a gunman whom police identified as 70-year-old Arthur Harmon went inside a Phoenix office building and shot three people , one fatally . And yet we continue to wait -- hoping tomorrow does n't bring more senseless shootings , more gunned-down babies , more pleas for change . Pendleton deserves more . The victims of Newtown deserve more . With so much blood flowing through our streets , the issue of gun control should not belong to red states or blue ones . It should be wedded to the idea that we deserve more . But as long as cowardly politicians continue to have their sense of morality held hostage by the National Rifle Association , we will continue to wait , even as more loved ones are violently taken from us . You know , John Adams said there was nothing he dreaded more than `` a division of the republic into two great parties , each arranged under its leadership , and concerting measures in opposition to each other . '' And Thomas Jefferson once said he `` never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever , in religion , in philosophy , in politics or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself . '' I wonder how many more days will pass , how many more lives will be lost , before the people who claim to love our forefathers so much actually take heed of some of the words they said . And yet we wait . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson . Watch Anderson Cooper 360° weeknights 10pm ET . For the latest from AC360° click here .
LZ Granderson : Tragic shootings take place in Alabama , Chicago , Phoenix . One takes the life of a 15-year-old days after she performed in Inauguration . He says things were supposed to change after the horror of Newtown . Granderson : And yet we wait for things like universal background checks for guns .