Hey friend, before you hit fast forward through this ad, let me just bend your ear a tick

and tell you all about Slate Plus, Slate's membership program. Do you know that what next is

going to be here for you, whether there's big breaking news or whether you just want to hear

about a story you might have missed? Basically, we've got you totally covered. And we're here,

thanks to Slate. If you want to support us, and I know you do, the best way to do that is to

join Slate Plus. It'll get you all connected with Slate's award-winning journalism,

you'll get ad-free podcasts, you'll get plus exclusive content on shows like Slow Burn

and Political Gabb Fast, and you'll never hit a paywall on the Slate site. Every new membership

helps ensure we can continue bringing you the biggest stories each week. So go on, hit the Pause

button, and go to Slate.com slash what next plus. Again, that's Slate.com slash what next plus.

All right, on with a show.

Just for a moment, consider this fact. There have been more mass shootings this year

than there have been days. Over 200 so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

There have been shootings at an affordable housing complex in Chicago,

in the waiting room of a doctor's office in Atlanta, and at a mall, just north of Dallas.

That mall shooting, it felt particularly grim because of how quickly

gruesome pictures of the victims and the gunmen made rounds on social media.

Eight people were killed. Their bodies left in a pile outside an H&M.

There's never a sensical motive for a crime like this, but that didn't stop digital scavengers from

looking. The shooter it turned out had left behind a diary online. In it, he was frank about his

white supremacist beliefs. He had a swastika tattoo on his chest. He was also Latino,

or as he put it online, Hispanic, whether I like it or not. Those words,

...