(Originally published by The Atlantic on April 12, 2023)

The public supports many sensible gun measures, but flaws in our democracy make us unable to adopt them.

The deadliest acts of mass murder in the United States since 9/11 all share one feature: The killer in every case used an assault-style weapon or a firearm equipped with a high-capacity magazine. This was again the case on Monday, at a shooting at a Kentucky bank that killed five, and in the recent shooting at the elementary school in Nashville that killed six, including three 9-year-old children.

And yet, the country has failed to adopt the policies needed to keep these weapons out of the hands of those who would abuse them.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on The Atlantic’s page here.)