In response to the Annunciation school shooting, I wrote an essay for The Everyman looking into the issue of gun rights in a society where such things happen:

First, these sorts of events always see politicians talking about the need for stricter ‘gun safety.’ Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was parroting this line even before bodies were cold.

It’s important to realize that these calls for gun-control are purely performative and we should not bother to directly address them. The same is true for the obvious fact that if it were the reverse – if a disturbed Catholic shot up a transsexual night club, for instance – then we would certainly not be hearing immediate calls to avoid critical mention of Catholic doctrine or hatred against the Catholic Church.

Frey is a big-city politician, so to complain that he is hypocritical, self-serving, or immoral is like observing that a frog is croaking too loud; that is what this sort of creature does (and with much the same level of substance). Restraint, compassion, and consistency offer no benefit to someone like Frey, so calling him out for lacking these qualities is simply a waste of time.

The fact of that matter is that, even if it were desirable, it is politically impractical to enact a large-scale gun ban in the United States. The means and will to enforce such a measure simply do not exist and are not going to exist for the foreseeable future: private firearms ownership is too deeply ingrained in American culture. The worst that could be done is another superficial partial ban of some sort: high-capacity magazines, bump stocks, and that sort of thing. Calls for action on the part of left-wing politicians are nothing but hot air from people who lack the capacity to even understand the problem, let alone solve it, but who have to appear to be doing something.

Which raises the question: why do these bad things happen?

Read the rest here