Jesuitical

As I write this, thousands of students across the country are walking out of their high schools to protest gun violence. April 20 marks the 19th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., which left 13 dead. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history. Tragically, that grisly record had been overtaken several times in the last two decades, most recently at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. After the Parkland shooting on Feb. 14, which left 17 students and employees dead, listeners asked that we dive deeper into the topic of gun violence. So this week, we are talking with Patrick Blanchfield, a writer who has covered the topic for n + 1 among other publications. We ask him why advocacy for gun control has been so ineffective; why religion and theology play such an important role in these debates; and whether the student activism following the Parkland shooting represents a new and promising front for those seeking to pass more