But it’s my hunch that Hodgkinson was not part of any broader movement. If he went to any Occupy Wall Street rallies, I’d be surprised. He seems to have been a lone, and lonely, man, stewing in his juices, fuming about the world, developing a worldview, when Bernie Sanders came along and seemed to be speaking directly and only to him.

I saw that many right-wingers on Twitter and Facebook were really enjoying this yesterday. It was all right, you see, because no one died (though Congressman Steve Scalise’s remained in critical condition Wednesday night). Now, the next eight times some right-wing nut goes on a shooting spree, they’ll have “but James Hodgkinson!” at the ready.

So be it. I abhor this shooting, and I abhor all such shootings. And while I would agree that it was a damn good thing that the police were there, I would not agree that that just proves that more people should have guns so that more Hodgkinsons can be stopped before inflicting the maximum damage. Teachers and regular citizens aren’t cops. They don’t do repeated drills on taking down perps, and they shouldn’t.