Fixing the Blame for Mass Shootings

Another mass shooting has rocked the nation. A seemingly deranged individual, striking out in an act of madness, gunned down eleven people Sunday in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store. News reports said the man charged with the shooting, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, was a “white supremacist” who chose the site for his rampage specifically because of the area’s large African American population.

It was the most high-profile of several mass shootings over the past weekend. The United States Department of Justice said it was investigating this one “as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism” according to a statement from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. That, based on a review of the alleged shooter’s online postings, is a study of the obvious.

Here’s some of what we know. Mr. Gendron wrote in his “manifesto” that he had been radicalized by extremist websites promoting hate, intolerance and racial division.