A day after Monday’s shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, we know much more about the shooter and the dead. But one question remains: “Why?” Why this school, why these victims, why was the shooter motivated to take these lives?
The search for a motive is a logical one. There’s a deep desire to understand what pushed a person to carry out such a heinous crime, especially when three children are dead. Nashville police have said that the shooter left behind writings that would potentially showcase their reasoning. But already many on the right have seized on reporting that the shooter was transgender to put a new spin on their anti-trans hate.
We know that America is simply awash in firearms.
My inbox was relatedly filled this morning after my article on Monday with people who were outraged that I didn’t mention the shooter being a transgender former student of the school. This is less of a “gotcha” than they seem to assume. As many pro-gun voices have said before, it’s impossible to legislate against whatever “evil” lies in a mass shooter’s head. This argument is often deployed as a defense against stronger gun laws. What it does not then grapple with is that it is entirely possible to legislate on the availability of guns in our society.
That fact remains true no matter the motive of the shooter. It’s true when talking about the Santa Barbara, California, gunman who left behind a “manifesto” detailing his hatred of women in 2014. It’s true when talking about the Charleston, South Carolina, shooter who walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 and killed nine people, whose white supremacy fueled his rampage. And it’s true when talking about the 2017 Las Vegas massacre that remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, even though to this day we have no solid answer about what prompted the slaughter.
What we can say with certainty though is that the shooter had “two AR-style rifles” with them on…
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