The shooter at the Minneapolis School used an AR-15

The shooter who attacked a morning, back-to-school Mass at a Catholic school in Minnesota used an AR-15 to fire into the church. He also used a shotgun and a handgun. He killed two children and wounded many other children and worshippers. He then killed himself. It's a sad and common pattern, one we discuss at length in American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15. Public policy needs to focus on how to keep guns out of the hands of people with a compulsion to hurt other people or themselves. So far, we as a nation have done a terrible job. Current background checks, which review someone's criminal history, won't work because often such individuals do not have a felony record. There is not one solution, but people need to look to laws and policies that tackle the problem: people who clearly want to go to war with society, for whatever delusion, and using an easily obtained semiautomatic rifle to do so. Minneapolis is the latest location on a map of such shootings.