Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Another weekend, another uniquely American ritual: a mass shooting, followed immediately by the Olympic-level mental gymnastics of the gun rights crowd. Lather, rinse, repeat. We’ve been doing this since before grunge was ironic and MTV still played music, so forgive some of us Gen Xers if we’re not exactly clutching our pearls anymore. We’ve seen this movie. The soundtrack is terrible, and the ending never changes.

This weekend’s tragedy in the United States—insert name, location, and the usual hollow “thoughts and prayers” here—barely had time to cool before the talking points machine fired up. But then, oh joy, a bonus plot twist: a mass shooting in Australia. Australia. The country that famously said, after one horrific massacre, “Yeah, no, this is insane,” and enacted serious gun control laws. The country where mass shootings promptly became so rare they’re basically a historical footnote.

And yet, watch closely, because this is where the narrative alchemy happens.

Step one: False Equivalence.

“See?” they’ll say, pounding the table like it’s a busted Atari joystick. “Australia had a mass shooting too! Gun laws don’t work!” This argument requires the listener to forget about math, context, and the passage of time. One incident after decades of near silence is treated as identical to the American situation, where mass shootings occur with such frequency they’re practically a subcategory on the evening news.

Step two: Ignore the Trend Line.

Australia’s gun laws didn’t magically eliminate violence forever, because reality isn’t a Marvel movie. But they did drastically reduce mass shootings. That inconvenient fact will be quietly shoved under the couch with the remote control batteries and the nation’s collective memory. Trends are boring. Outliers are exciting. Guess which one gets airtime?

Step three: Blame Literally Anything Else.

Mental health. Video games. Social media. Heavy metal. Rap. The decline of cursive writing. Anything—anything—except the easy access to weapons designed to kill lots of people very quickly. Because acknowledging that part would require admitting that maybe, just maybe, other countries weren’t wrong to say, “Hey, civilians probably don’t need this.”

Step four: Freedom, Bro.

This is where the argument goes full classic rock radio: loud, repetitive, and deeply resistant to change. Australia, we’re told, “gave up their freedom.” Never mind that Australians are still free to vote, protest, criticize their government, and not wonder if going to the grocery store is a high-risk activity. But sure, freedom definitely lives and dies with how easy it is to buy a gun.

From a Gen X perspective, this all feels painfully familiar. We grew up with duck-and-cover drills’ spiritual successor: active shooter drills. We were raised on skepticism, irony, and the understanding that adults often have no idea what they’re doing. And yet here we are, decades later, watching the same bad-faith arguments recycled like a scratched CD, pretending the chorus hasn’t already played a thousand times.

Australia’s rare tragedy doesn’t prove gun control failed. It proves something far more uncomfortable: that no policy creates a perfect world, but some policies clearly create a less deadly one. And that’s the part the gun rights crowd will twist, contort, and shout over—because admitting otherwise would mean admitting we could choose differently.

But whatever. We’ll talk about it for a few days, argue on the internet, and then wait for the next weekend. Because if there’s one thing America has truly mastered, it’s the art of learning absolutely nothing—on repeat.