Yesterday was an unspeakable tragedy for a few dozens of families and an opportunity for the rest of us to revisit our collective disgrace – every single one of us – in sitting by and letting these things happen again and again. Yesterday I had what was for me at least a minor epiphany: A major driver of gun massacres is not simply our failure to act on any one of the various proposed incremental reforms. It is our failure to act on any of them or all of them, ever, which validates and encourages a culture of massacre.

I want to be clear precisely what I mean. Our inaction itself and the clear reasons for our collective inaction validate and inspire the culture of massacre. Directly. By doing nothing we validate a simple point: the total, maximal right to have any number of guns of any sort in any circumstance is not only more important but overwhelmingly more important than preventing school massacres. It is more important than anything. Nothing better captures the cultural supremacy of the gun than this. Nothing provides more fuel to the now hideously cliched ritual of the blaze of glory moment of total destruction.