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Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi recently dissected the legacy media’s game on mass shooting coverage, writing, “If the perpetrator’s motivations are even tenuously tied to right-wing ideology, coverage will focus on the dangers of rhetoric coming from Republicans. If not … the conversation will focus on the lack of gun control, a problem that’s also the fault of Republicans.”

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And since the Annunciation Catholic School shooter in Minneapolis actively identified with left-wing politics, the legacy media, in coordination with Democratic officials, have instigated yet another national conversation on “gun violence.” 

HOW TRUMP CAN RESPOND TO THE CHARLOTTE STABBING

This convenient framing sidesteps the reality of violent left-wing rhetoric and accompanying spasms of violence, including Luigi Mangione’s cold-blooded murder of a health insurance executive, the assassination of two Israeli Embassy workers, and the Annunciation shooting. It also avoids careful examination of an American culture that steadily churns out psychopaths bent on mass murder. 

Videos of hysterical Democratic politicians berating the nation for not “doing something” on guns inevitably follow these horrific events. The problem, they implore, is that we lack the political and moral will to “do something” about mass shootings, implying that there exists a proposed piece of legislation that would “ban guns” or something of the kind. This sets the false expectation that the problem of mass shootings can be legislated away — and that the evil Republicans working on behalf of the shadowy gun lobby are all that stand in the way of ending this national nightmare.

Indeed, protesters at March for Our Lives rallies can often be seen waving placards that read “Ban All Guns Now” — the official March for Our Lives account on X once posted, “No more guns in our schools. No more guns in our streets. Enough is enough.” The sentiment is regularly echoed by the liberal rank and file, who seem to believe genuinely that guns in America can be “banned” despite there being 400 million in circulation, including millions of untraceable guns on the black market.

High-ranking Democratic officials do little to tamp down this expectation among their voters, framing commonsense gun control proposals, such as universal background checks, red flag and safe storage laws, waiting periods, and high-capacity magazine limits, as a cure-all despite many of these already being in effect in states and municipalities across the nation. 

To be sure, these measures are not unreasonable — and in fact, I support them all to the extent that they remain constitutional. But there is little evidence to suggest that they would end or even reduce the instances of mass shootings. 

Even studies that purport to show a connection between enacting gun laws and reducing mass shootings are weak at best. For instance, a 2024 study from Northwestern Medicine found that a federal ban on “assault weapons” could have prevented 38 mass shootings between 2005 and 2022. But that’s a tiny drop in a very large bucket. A 2023 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found there had been 4,011 mass shootings in the United States between 2014 and 2022 alone. It’s impossible to say definitively that a ban would have actually stopped 38 because it’s possible the killers could have circumvented the system and gotten their hands on one of the nation’s millions of untraceable guns on the black market.

If nothing else, mass shooters exhibit an obsession with carrying out their attacks. Even if guns could be magically waved away, what’s to say they wouldn’t move on to other means, such as explosives? 

Liberals often suggest that a gun buyback program, such as Australia enacted in the late ’90s, would effectively remove guns from our culture. But the evidence suggests it would do little to solve the problem. A 2008 meta-analysis of gun buyback programs in Crime & Delinquency found no research showing “significant changes in gun-related crimes due to these programs.” 

And the unintended consequences might even make matters worse. That’s because criminals with untraceable “ghost” guns would never participate, only law-abiding Americans. A gun buyback initiative would disarm the good guys to the benefit of the bad guys. 

It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially for Democrats whose instinct is to solve every conceivable human problem through the power of the state. 

By all means, states should pass universal background checks, waiting periods, high-capacity magazine limits, and even an “assault weapons” ban if it can be done constitutionally. But mass shootings will not simply disappear as a result. 

“Do something” Democrats and everyone else would be better served by shifting their focus to the morally autonomous individuals behind the guns and the culture that produces them. Specifically, we must ask: What is it about our way of life that spawns these killers?

This isn’t a straightforward question, as American culture is vast and varied. Still, we must grasp for common threads that contribute to mass shootings.

One such possible thread is the prevalence of marijuana use among mass shooters. A recent study published in the journal ResearchGate/EASAP found that marijuana usage among mass shooters has increased significantly in recent years and that mass shooters with cannabis involvement were, on average, younger than those without. 

This mirrors broader trends: The National Institutes of Health reports that 43% of young adults used marijuana in 2021, up from 29% a decade ago. As the Trump administration mulls marijuana reclassification, should we reconsider the push for marijuana legalization and normalization as part of an effort to decrease mass shootings?

Another trait shared by mass shooters is social isolation, a byproduct of a truly appalling level of daily screen time. A 2021 Common Sense Media census found that teenagers averaged 8 hours and 39 minutes of entertainment screen time daily, while a 2023 Gallup survey found that teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media. Is it time to build a real national movement to reduce screen time for children?

The glorification of violence also plays a role. American culture, molded by a million violent Hollywood films and video games, excels at glorifying and stylizing death. Studies show that U.S. children witness, on average, 200,000 violent acts on TV before they turn 18. And boys are likely to engage in thousands of hours of hyperrealistic and violent video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. 

Is it time we began limiting stylized and glorified violence in the media diets of our youth? 

Another commonality is the pursuit of infamy. They envy the notoriety obtained by previous mass shooters, and they leave “legacy tokens” to be found and widely disseminated after their deaths. 

THE COMING CIVIL WAR OVER THE POST-TRUMP GOP

Is it time we began discouraging the fame-seeking mentality encouraged by our social media culture? 

Sensible gun laws have their place, but they won’t erase mass shootings. To make a dent, we must address the cultural forces that shape those who pull the trigger. For a Democratic Party obsessed with addressing “root causes,” focusing on cultural issues should be an obvious step.