David Atkins writes in Washington Monthly that there is only one way to reduce gun violence and that’s to reduce the number of guns.

He writes:

”I’m tired of this. Americans are tired of this. Mass shootings are now occurring with a depressing regularity, including well over a dozen school shootings 2018 alone.

“Each and every time we are subjected to the same arguments, a circular merry-go-round of desperate anger from families and mainstream Americans, shocking bad faith and callousness by those who want to preserve the status quo, and callous opportunism by those trying to shoehorn their own separate issue advocacy into the discussion. The cycle of violence and reaction is a mandala of pain and futility.

“And every time the bottom line is and remains the same: if you want to end gun violence, reduce the number of guns. It’s that simple. There is no other answer. The simple reason is that the only difference between America and other industrialized nations on the issues so often blamed for gun violence is access to guns.

“It’s not mental health. While American underfunded treatment of mental health issues is terrible, mental illness is also often stigmatized and underfunded in other countries. Nor is there any reason to believe that Americans are, per capita, suffering from greater mental illness than Japanese or Swedes or Peruvians.

“It’s not violent movies or video games. Every industrialized culture across the world consumes these entertainments. The French, the Kenyans and the South Koreans watch The Matrix and play Halo, but they don’t have a school shooting every week…

”There is only one common denominator: the guns. There is no cultural solution to this problem. There is no funding solution to this problem. There is no other, easy way out.

“Either we reduce access to guns (and particularly to semi-automatic rifles), or we are going to see this again. And again. And again. And again.

“But if we must continue to endure the killings, at least let’s stop going through the cycle of the same garbage arguments. Let’s just concede that we are choosing to place the right of people to own weapons of death, over the lives of thousands–including schoolchildren.”