Right to arms, right to peace? Our writer explored a balance.

A headline story one day, out of sight the next – and somehow never far away. The mass shooting is a mostly American phenomenon. Most media coverage falls into a pattern of lament, debate, and repeat. 

Patrik Jonsson, a Georgia-based staff writer for the Monitor, often writes on gun culture and gun violence. He was at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, just after the deadly 2012 shooting there. 

After the Oct. 25 shootings in Lewiston, Maine, Patrik followed up on reporting by colleague Simon Montlake with a step-back...