You know what sucks about being a blogger? Whenever anything terrible happens, you’re supposed to have an opinion. And if you don’t have a “take” then you wind up writing something like this:

In the wake of tragedy, we look for explanations.

The most comfortable explanations are those that reinforce our preexisting understanding of who is on the side of good and right in our active debates. Inevitably, people on the other side complain about politicization, but at least it’s channeling the feelings of helplessness into what proponents see as constructive activity. The only ones with real cause to complain are not one’s political opponents, but the victims’ families.

Of course, these politicized explanations are not mutually exclusive, and eventually someone like Jeffrey Goldberg comes along and points this out.

This needs to be reiterated: Orlando massacre can be about Islamism, access to guns, homophobia and mental illness, all at the same time.

— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) June 12, 2016

Tragedy doesn’t have a single moral. It can be about many things. This is also true — and if it leads to a bit of mutual respect by the competing sides in the war to own the narrative that emerges from a tragedy like the one in Orlando, Florida, then it’s also a good thing. Maybe we’ll get more sensible gun laws and more resources for mental illness and a better system for monitoring jihadi groups.

But would any of those actions, even if worthy, have prevented this particular massacre? An explanation isn’t the same as a diagnosis. And even a diagnosis doesn’t imply a cure.

Read the whole thing at The Week.