“There have been enough mass shootings in this country that it’s become possible to divide the Republican response into established sub-genre. The provocateurs get the most attention for saying that the victims could have saved themselves if only they’d been armed. But there’s a subtler conservative approach that refuses to acknowledge any connection between the weapon and the crime, as if disturbed individuals could wreak the save havoc with slingshots and butter knives as they do with legally purchased semi-automatic weapons.” – Alex Halperin