Mass shootings occur with such frequency that there is a well-established script for everyone.  The media focuses on the weapon used, the right offers “thoughts and prayers” and says now is not the time to talk about gun violence, and the left calls for more gun control. Attention will then fade; children will be buried and nothing significant will be done. This cycle will repeat with the next mass shooting. And the next. As a country, we are getting it wrong in many ways.

One way we get it wrong, which is a fault of the media and “the left”, is to obsess on the weapon used in the shooting. This weapon is often an AR-15. The media script often involves asking why it is used in shootings. The easy and obvious answer is that it shows up at mass shootings for the same reason that McDonald bags end up on the roadside: both are very popular. The AR-15 is a “good” weapon for mass shootings because it has a large magazine capacity and is both lethal and easy to shoot. But the AR-15 is not unique. There are similar assault rifles (as they are called). For example, the AK-47 and its clones are effective weapons of this type; but they are less popular in America. Other guns are just as lethal (or more so) than the assault rifles, but they usually have smaller magazines. For example, a hunting rifle might hold only 5 rounds. This shows one of the problems with the obsession with the AR-15, that there are other weapons that can do the same.

Another problem with obsessing about the specific weapon is that it enables an easy red herring response to calls for gun control. A red herring is a rhetorical device used to divert attention from the original issue to another issue. When, for example, a reporter starts pressing a congressman about the AR-15, they can easily switch the discussion from gun violence to a discussion about the AR-15, thus getting away from the real issue. A solution is to resist focusing on one weapon and focus instead on the issue of gun violence. Which leads to another way we get it wrong.

School shootings are horrific, but they are not the way most victims of gun violence die. Homicides are currently at relatively low levels (for the United States). Most gun-related deaths are suicides, and assault rifles are not the most used weapon in gun deaths. School shootings and mass shootings get the attention of the media and the nation, but this has seemed to enable us to ignore the steady flow of gun-related deaths that do not make headlines. This is not to deny mass shooting are serious problem. But the gun violence problem in America goes beyond mass shootings. It is, ironically, a quiet problem that does not get the spotlight of the media like a mass shooting does. As such, even less is done about the broader problem than is done about mass shootings. And little or nothing is done about mass shootings.

While there are gun control proposals from “the left”, the right advocates having a “good guy with a gun” approach, blames mental illness, and propose fortifying schools. There seems to be little evidence that the “good guy with a gun” will solve the problem of mass shootings; but this is because there is so little good data about gun violence. While mental illness is clearly a problem and seriously addressing mental illness would be a social good, it seems unlikely that the vague proposals offered would do anything even if they were acted upon. America essentially abandoned the mentally ill during the Reagan era, an approach that has persisted to this day. The right is not serious about putting in the social services needed to address mental illness; they bring it up in response to mass shootings to distract people from gun control. The left, while expressing concern, also has done little to address this challenge or health care in general. Also, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims than perpetrators, so addressing mental health in a way that focuses on mass shooters would not address the broader problem.

The proposals to create “Fortress Academia” might seem appealing, but there is the obvious problem with cost: public schools are often chronically underfunded, and it is not clear where the money needed for such fortifications would come from. Turning schools into fortresses seems fundamentally wrong and is, perhaps, a red herring to distract people from the actual causes of the problem. To use an analogy, it is like addressing the opioid epidemic by telling people to get better home security to prevent addicts from breaking in to steal things to sell to buy drugs. This is not to say that school safety is a bad idea, just that turning our schools into forts does not seem to be the best approach.

I know that it will not be that long before I am writing about mass shootings and gun violence again as the malign neglect of the problem persists as does the neglect of so many of America’s ills.