(Note: Although this is a medical blog, I feel this still deserves a place here, as gun violence is unquestionably a public health issue.)

Having slogged through a good number of posts on gun violence since the latest school shootings, I haven’t encountered a single novel argument for, or against, gun control. The arguments on either side remain conventional and threadbare. After the current round of shouting, expect more “crickets chirping,” right up until the next mass casualty. If there is an exceptionalism to Americans, it lies in our intransigence and inability to learn from others. While the rest of the first-world has universal healthcare, we bicker and leave multitudes to do without. Whereas the nations of Scandinavia work to narrow the inequality gap, we elect officials who strive to widen it further. Long after other nations have enacted legislation ultimately proven to have kept their children safe, we continue to cringe, blame, deflect, and debate to no effect. Nothing has been tried. Nothing has been done. Research on the matter was effectively banned by Congress in 1996. How did this happen?