March 28, 2023 - 11:54am

This week America experienced its 13th school shooting of the calendar year, keeping the nation of 332 million people and 350 million firearms on pace to exceed last year’s tally of 51. The latest shooting occurred at the Covenant School, a small Christian academy in Nashville. Using two assault weapons and a handgun, shooter Audrey Hale —  female at birth, but now using “he/him” pronouns along with the name “Aiden” in some online profiles — killed three 9-year-old children, the school’s custodian, the head of school, and a substitute teacher.  

At the time of this writing, it is still too early to ascertain Hale’s motivations. Officials claim a manifesto exists, as do detailed maps that helped Hale, a former student of the school, execute her plan with a high degree of efficiency. This particular incident is unique by U.S. standards: of the 135 mass shootings (defined as a single attack in a public place in which four or more victims were killed) that have occurred since 1982, only three were carried out by women (although commentator Wesley Yang noted that referring to Hale as such constitutes “misgendering” her).

Each of the warring sides in America’s interminable, ever-worsening culture wars can place the burden of guilt for Hale’s murders at the feet of their foes. Those on the Left can suggest that Tennessee’s recent ban on access to puberty blockers for minors and restrictions on drag events forced the shooter’s hand. Meanwhile, those on the Right — who are calling for the release of Hale’s manifesto — can attribute it to yet another act of “trans violence”, referencing shooters in Colorado Springs last year (Anderson Lee Aldrich), Denver in 2019 (Alec McKinney), and Aberdeen, Maryland in 2018 (Snochia Moseley, also born female). 

Describing four shootings in five years as an “epidemic” is perhaps an exaggeration, but it is a perfectly serviceable tabula rasa on which irreconcilable foes can write their grievances. Old culture war battles can be rehashed yet again, like the one that involves the Right laying blame for shootings on “mental health” and the Left citing easy access to guns. The latter can try to make it slightly harder to purchase handguns — it’s still quite easy to purchase long guns like rifles and shotguns in the U.S. — while the former can attempt to increase funding to police or prisons to house the latest generation of mentally disturbed “super-predators.” 

The one thing that is certain is that neither side has any easy answers to this nigh-insoluble problem. Public figures like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene can raise peripheral questions about “steroid rage” tied to testosterone use by trans people such as Hale — a real problem for all testosterone users — but no evidence of the shooter’s use has yet surfaced. Instead, the hard and simple fact remains that there are at least 350 million firearms in the United States, so many that even ambitious confiscation programs like the one undertaken in Australia (which confiscated approximately 650,000 guns) would struggle to make a dent in such a vast number. Likewise, the restriction of sale and distribution will do little on the supply side for those needing weapons for illicit purposes, especially criminals willing to acquire them illegally. 

With solutions in short supply, Americans of all political stripes will find themselves grappling with the next round of school shootings and mass shootings (130 as of this writing, with many admittedly tied to gang-related violence). This violence, at least for now, hasn’t reached the levels that make bulletproof cars such a sought-after status symbol for Brazil’s rich, but partisan agitation tied to the impending 2024 elections surely won’t help matters.


Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

MoustacheClubUS