The quote of the day is presented by Guns.com.
According to the AP, investigators haven’t found the usual note, manifesto, or online screed left by the 16-year-old who opened fire in Saugus High School on Thursday with a .45 caliber handgun. Everyone who knew the “quiet and smart kid who was a Boy Scout” expressed surprise that he did what he did.
But for the hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times, there’s no mystery at all. The fault lies, as it always does, with the gun.
There will certainly be an investigation into where this weapon came from, whether an adult failed to lock it up, whether there were any hints of the violence to come, whether school security was adequate. All of that will get sorted out. But in the end, the availability of the gun remains, and that is the root of our gun violence problem.
This is the 39th mass shooting (that is, a shooting in which at least four people were wounded) in California this year, bringing the statewide total to 53 people killed and 158 injured. And this in a state with some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country. Nationwide, an additional 354 people have died, with 1,321 injured.
So how do we address this? Policy debates haven’t worked. Legislative fixes — few and far between nationwide — have been insufficient. The gun lobby and 2nd Amendment hard-liners shake their heads and say, nope, this isn’t on us. It’s mental illness. Or it’s this or it’s that but, Lord, no, it’s never the guns.
Except it’s always the guns. And the bigger and badder the firearm, the worse the carnage.
– LA Times editorial board in Santa Clarita shooting: It’s the guns. It’s always the guns
