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The debate over guns that we always see after these tragedies seems politically motived. If we were serious about gun violence, we would be more interested in the inner city murders that happen, one by one or two, with hand guns. The number of these murders by handguns far outnumbers mass shootings with quasi assault weapons (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls).

But mass shootings with assault riffles is a chance to pin blood blame on our political rivals, whereas calling out inner city crime risks offending allies.

What gets missed in this never ending political back and forth about guns is the deeper, self-reflecting question: What is wrong with a country and society that produces young people that are so murderously damaged?

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It's not the guns. Well into the mid 1960s, it was common to have firearms practice in the high schools. One high school I visited while in debate tournaments in the early 1980s had a junior ROTC with a shooting gallery for firearms practice. This was in Ogden Utah.

But hey, let's blame everything on the outgroup.

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