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Attempting to attribute a common motive or underlying psychological explanation to such a multifaceted phenomenon is a fool’s errand. But as the CNN commentator Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director of the F.B.I., pointed out on Monday, there is one thing that ties many of the most deadly mass shootings together: the ready availability of highly deadly weapons, such as the semi-automatic pistol that police say was used in the massacre in Monterey Park. It is this commonality that distinguishes the United States from most other advanced countries, where mass shootings are rare. (John Cassidy, 1/23)

Each time this happens in this gun-mad country, the victims, the survivors, the weapons, the shooters and the motivations are different. Yet, as with every such shooting, two things are always true: it was an abomination that cut down the lives of those who wanted just to live in safety, and it was a choice, one we collectively made. It is a choice to make it catastrophically simple to purchase semiautomatic long guns for personal use. It is a choice to allow civilians to waltz into a gun store and walk out with multiple magazines and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, ready to be fed into a machine whose only purpose is to maim and kill. (1/23)

One of the world’s most sensitive and consequential scientific questions will soon be grist for discussion among the members of a congressional subcommittee. The question is this: Where did the virus that causes covid-19 come from? (David Quammen, 1/23)

On Sept. 18, President Biden famously said “the pandemic is over.” He very quickly followed that up by saying: “We are doing a lot of work on it.” These notions may sound contradictory, but they are indeed the way to approach the concept of endemicity; combating COVID-19 will take ongoing and hard work. (Monica Gandhi, 1/21)

Should we pity the “poor historian” — the individual or family member who can’t give a clear accounting of their illness or symptoms — or embrace them? They have important stories to offer their clinicians, but can’t tell them. Who is really to blame here? And should the term poor historian ever be part of an individual’s permanent record? (Steven Server and Samuel Schotland, 1/24)

Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is legal in Canada thanks to the country’s mercurial judiciary, which has, over the years, slowly constructed a constitutional right for Canadians to die by suicide. (J.J. McCullough, 1/23)

Given all the billions of taxes collected from sales of tobacco products, not to mention the billions more provided through a 1998 settlement over the cost of tobacco-related illness, one would think that states like Maryland would fully fund programs that deter young people from using tobacco (or encourage them to quit). (1/23)