Self-deception allows much of humanity to make it through the day, Reg, and prayer is just one manifestation of it. It doesn't work because there's no one on the other end of the line, but boy, it feels empowering, especially when it's ritualized and performed with a community of likeminded folks.

Self-deception allows people to believe that a gun in the house makes them safer.

It allows the abused spouse to believe that the abuser is truly remorseful and will not hit again.

Some people can be educated out of self-deception but I think it's part of our make-up and it probably served some purpose as our species evolved.

In the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre, with all the obligatory prayer sessions occurring, it was at least a bit refreshing to see Congressman Seth Moulton refuse to participate in the moment of silence silliness.

My sense is that sadly little probably can be done to reduce the all too predictable 30,000+ annual firearms deaths in the United States. There are just too many weapons, the war on drugs helps to fuel it, the second amendment has become a religion and tribal identity to too many people, and we have far too many cowards in office. Additionally, there are a lot of pathetic, messed-up losers out there who desperately want to leave their mark, regardless of how odious it is. They know the media "keeps score" when it comes to mass shootings and some people will kill for that fame.

Still, I'm open to ideas. One possibility that sounds promising is that we should make it a heck of a lot harder to own weapons by requiring extensive training and more rigorous background checks. There's bound to be a lot more we can do on the mental health front. Closing the gun show loophole, reducing the number of weapons an individual can purchase, limiting the size of the magazines available, etc. will probably have slightly positive effects but it's hard to be optimistic, Reg. Can we educate ourselves out of America's love affair with firearms?

Peter T.