“It’s true, too, that a background check would not have stopped Adam Lanza, who had no criminal record, and whose mother had reportedly bought the guns he used in Newtown. But laws influence culture, just as culture influences laws, and if Congress enacted a serious piece of gun-control legislation perhaps that might initiate a subtle shift in American attitudes toward guns, and that might eventually lead some parent with a deeply troubled, deeply isolated son fascinated by violence to think twice before turning the family home into a munitions depot. Conversely, if lawmakers won’t pass even a modest reform supported by the vast majority of Americans, they will be capitulating to the N.R.A.’s corrosive view that the only answer to gun violence is more guns.” – Margaret Talbot in Why is Congress So Afraid of Gun Control? [via newyorker.com]