I see that my reaction is much more consistent with those expressed by the editors of the Wall Street Journal on the shootings:
The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend are horrifying assaults on peaceful communities by disturbed young men. American politics will try to simplify these events into a debate about guns or political rhetoric, but the common theme of these killings is the social alienation of young men that will be harder to address.
I think the strand that ties them together is mental illness. The editors continue:
Which brings us back to the angry young men. This is the one common element in nearly all mass shootings: 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz in Parkland, Fla.; Chris Harper-Mercer in Oregon’s Umpqua Community College; Adam Lanza at Newtown, Conn.; Devin Patrick Kelley in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and the rest. All were deeply troubled and alienated from society in our increasingly atomistic culture.
There are actually two elements: “deeply disturbed and alienated” young men and firearms. We can render firearms less lethal and make them harder to obtain. That may make spree killings rarer but it won’t do much about the murders that take place every weekend on the South Side of Chicago. Holding a complete elimination of firearms as the standard is not just unrealistic, it’s cynical.
