You’d think the media would get tired of it. It’s more or less the same story every time some deranged youth takes a gun to school and starts shooting the place up —like Kipling’s Kurrum Valley scamp “who knows no word of moods and tenses,”

But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

What “causes” such behavior? Is it the availability of guns? In the case of “Andy” Williams of Santana High School, California, this was a less favored explanation than usual—perhaps because the gun he used was of a type (a .22 revolver) of which no one had as yet thought to propose the banning. But there were plenty of the usual suspects left. Is it our “violent” culture and images of “violence” on television? Or a more general moral decline? Is it uncaring parents or unobservant teachers? Or are we ...

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