How Come Only Mass Shootings Make the News?

Back in 2013, shortly after Sandy Hook, the Chicago suburb of Highland Park passed an AR-15 ban. The ban not only prohibited any town residents from going out a buying an assault rifle, but also required any current AR-15 owner to either get rid of the gun or move out of town.

The law was appealed by the usual pro-gun bunch and the appeal went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which by a vote of 7–2 refused to hear the case, so the law remained on the books. Fat lot of good that law did over the weekend, right?

The two justices who dissented from the decision to hear the case were, of course, Scalia and Thomas, with the latter writing a lengthy dissent [thank you Paula] containing the following text: “The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.”

What Thomas should have added to his list of lawful purposes for shooting an AR-15 was the ability to climb up on the roof of a building, pop off some 70 rounds at people marching in an Independence Day parade, kill 7 people and wound 46 more.

What’s wrong with that? How do we know that this kid who did the shooting didn’t believe he…