Shooter sanctimony, part 1

I suppose that people who make their living selling firearms designed to kill humans should find another way to earn their living; I'd always counsel friends and family to stay away from that line of work. But this sort of sanctimony, in my opinion, falls into the category of unhelpful liberal claptrap. Moralistic posturing like this is not a helpful way to start a public policy discussion of campus shootings and how to prevent them. So the visionary Mithras stands firm, against time and tide, in opposition to random mass murder committed by the mentally ill. Bravo!

Despite the warm feelings of moral superiority that often plague us, society's response to school shootings (and workplace shootings and mall shootings) can't be all about confiscating guns and demonizing gun owners. That's the same approach wingnuts use to attack the practice of planned parenthood by demanding to outlaw abortion while demonizing people who have sexual relations with no reproductive intent. The people who actually operate government have to deal with a lot of stuff that people of the right, left, and center wings consider icky, but pragmatism has to win out in order to develop a functional policy.

So what would be helpful in terms of discussing campus massacres? I'll make a suggestion in a follow-on post.