This almost novelistic sheen of the loony makes the tragedies curiously hard to evaluate.
Evil is, after all, a mystery.
The uniqueness of individual evils owes something to chaos theory. Perhaps we should not try to explain something like the shootings but should sit very still, and pray, and await the arrival of clarity. The anti-gun forces took some energy from public outrage over the shootings. California's assembly approved a bill designed to limit handgun sales. State legislators quickly withdrew two of them, and Governor Bill Owens promised to veto the third.