After a mass shooter killed 12 people last weekend, some gun rights activists lamented that the office complex where the shooting had happened didn’t permit guns. If only a good guy had been allowed to bring his gun to work, they reasoned, the shooter could have been stopped in his tracks.
Pro-gun pundits and politicians will usually repeat some version of the “good guy with a gun” trope in response to each mass shooting. So when comparative literature professor Susanna Lee pitched an article about the origins of this idea, I was immediately interested. In her research, Lee traces the origins of the archetype to the 1920s, when hard-boiled detective fiction first became popular. The protagonists of these stories were mostly tough-talking, straight-shooting private detectives. Readers couldn’t get enough.
But what started as entertainment has become ingrained in American culture. And maintaining this fantasy, Lee writes, “has become a deadly obsession.”
There are reasons to be skeptical, of both the quality of the evidence presented so far and the questionable assumptions that underlie claims of improved cognitive function after brain training.
Despite privacy concerns over police use of DNA uploaded to ancestry websites, many people are just excited that their genetic material could get a killer off the streets.
Stian Rice, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Since Reconstruction, states have leased prisoners to US industries. That diminished in the 20th century, but now it's resurging, with prisoners leased to harvest food for American consumers.
Christopher Lubienski, Indiana University; Joel R Malin, Miami University
Research over the past few years has shown vouchers for private schools set back student learning. So why are advocates still pushing so hard to expand them?
You are tired. Would nine more minutes really hurt? Is hitting the snooze button a good idea? Should you just get out of bed? Or is snoozing a sign of a more serious medical issue?