The more I study the problem, the more I'm convinced it's a symptom of "The American Dream."

Ours is a country where children grow up being told they can be anything they want, then hot-dropping into an economy where an English degree is required to make coffee. They're told it's the land of opportunity but 1% of the population controls 99% of the wealth and always has, always will. It's a country where a boy's life can be ruined forever for receiving a naked text of his age-appropriate girlfriend, where white males are demonstrably on top of the food chain but young, middle-American lower-middle-class white males are bereft of the promises and opportunities that they've had for generations. Can't get a job, can't get a date, can't get a break, but fuckin' A AR-15s are cheap.

Throw minority membership into the mix. Young black men? More likely to go to prison than to college. Muslim? Can't even bring a clock to school without the Sheriff staring you down for an hour. Yet ours is a society that respects money and fame above all else. Don't got money? Don't got fame? At least you can get even.

Inequality breeds violence and the disconnect between what young men are promised and what young men receive has been growing for 40 years. This drives almost none of them into homicidal rage... but for that tiny asymptotic percentage, we've got discussions such as these.

There has never been a socially-fulfilled, economically-stable mass shooter. The people who pick up guns and shoot at strangers are the ones with nothing to lose.