Blame the Gun Laws, Not Judd Apatow

After the gun massacre comes the blame game. It was Hollywood’s fault. Social media is responsible. It’s an issue of mental illness. Or suburban anomie. Or, in this case, male adolescent misogyny and sexual frustration taken to the extreme.

From Columbine to Newtown to Isla Vista, we’ve seen this narrative play out many times, and one understands the desire to cover all the angles and search for something new. After all, it gets a bit boring and repetitive to state what is, nonetheless, blindingly obvious: it’s not Judd Apatow or “Neighbors,” the new frat-boy movie. It’s not the Internet or the “manosphere.” It’s not anomie or misogyny, or too much sex, or too little, or anything else having to do with the dreadful but familiar pathologies of male adolescence and post-adolescence. It’s American gun laws.

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