What's on our Minds for March 30, 2023

Here’s what we talked about:

• School shootings, and the school-safety legislative package that Republicans in the Oregon House of Representatives have offered as their solution to the problem.
  
  

• The “we’re not going to fix it” attitude of Republicans nationwide, their apparent decision to avoid the problem by giving up on public education altogether, and the question whether there really is any conceivable way of addressing the pervasive mental, emotional, and spiritual sickness that drives mass shootings.
  
  

• The cultural phenomenon of AR-15 ownership, the rampant paranoia that appears to be driving even our own family members to purchase these weapons in preparation for killing other human beings when things get bad in some unspecified way.
  
  

• The disappearance of conversation in much of American life.