Yet another tragedy, yet another gun control debate, and again we hear that familiar rallying cry, the average modern-day American’s solution to every conceivable problem — “The government should do something about this.” Well, here’s the problem — what the “government has been doing about this” has been decidedly ineffective.

This debate is so absurdly sensationalized, and as a result the solutions which we always discuss are equally sensationalized. What even is a “military-style assault weapon”? Because it’s certainly not an assault rife, those have been illegal since NFA. That terminology is not used by weapons manufacturers, or by the military, or by anyone with a decent understanding of firearms design. It is used, however, by politicians looking to arbitrarily restrict guns in ways which are usually easily (legally) circumvented, to create a facade that makes it seem like they accomplished something.

Gun laws are, in aggregate, more strict year after year, and yet these appalling killings keep happening. It’s time we started exploring meaningful solutions, like increased school security and expanded access to mental health treatment, instead of this pointless posturing. Dominic Cingoranelli

Monument