Maybe we should be happy. It’s not nothing. And it’s not the loosening of regulations that has followed some mass shootings. But it’s not nearly enough to address the deadly scourge we face. “A bipartisan group of senators on Sunday announced a framework for federal gun control legislation, a remarkable breakthrough after years of stasis and obstruction on the part of Republican senators to pass any restrictions on gun ownership. Despite the bipartisan cooperation, the framework is not yet formal legislation — and focuses primarily on mental health and school security interventions, rather than meaningfully restricting access to firearms.” Maybe this helped move things along. Hundreds of CEOs just signed a letter to the Senate urging ‘immediate action’ on gun control.

+ “They are both devices and symbols, possessing a cultural magnetism that makes them, for many people, the cornerstone of a way of life. They’re tools that kill efficiently while also promising power, respect, and equality—liberation from tyranny, from crime, from weakness. They’re a heritage from an imagined past, and a fantasy about protecting our future. It’s taken nearly two hundred years for guns to become the problem they are today. The story of how they acquired their power explains why, now, they are so hard to stop.” Phil Klay in The New Yorker: How Did Guns Get So Powerful?