I'm kind of surprised that the interaction between bonkers US conspiracy politics and actual shootings is so _low_. It's as if the beliefs have a sort of ritual status that "everybody knows" they're not expected to act on.

The biggest reason is that most of the Dale Gribbles of the world, just like the local college's Revolutionary Socialist club, are all talk. It takes a lot of commitment to actually carry out a shooting or bombing or whatever, and most people are happy to say "This is really bad. Someone oughta do something, and it's good thing that I'm aware of this unlike the rest of the sheeple" while doing absolutely nothing to effect that agenda.

The people who actually manage to commit these acts are on an entirely different level of nuts.

Pedestrian example: How many gung-ho teenagers talk about joining the military? How many of them actually go through with talking to a recruiter, going to MEPS, and signing on the dotted line? And that's for a cause that is widely accepted by society and confers actual benefits rather than guaranteed violent death or lifelong incarceration in an elaborate concrete box in rural Colorado.

Did you know in France they allow people to rent trucks?

A lot of people don't share your irrational fear of guns.

What's the primary function of a truck?

Does it matter? Weapons are where you find them.

The Nice attacker used no firearms and killed eighty-six people. The DC attacker used a firearm and killed no one. Is it possible that firearms aren't really the problem here?

In Canada here we have a strange definition of a weapon (as opposed to firearm or otherwise). A object becomes a weapon when it is used with the intent to harm/kill someone. Or something close to that, prevents shenanigans trying to skirt the formal definitions.

For this reason some bikers carry hammers on their bikes, y'know incase repairs need to be done. In the case of Nice, a truck is inherently a weapon. Can't really regulate every truck though

As an American, I demand that you turn over this secret technology you undoubtedly must possess for inserting common sense into the written law!~

The idea that "tool" and "weapon" are separated by intent rather than construction is so simple and obvious that apparently no one in certain buildings of Washington, DC, is capable of thinking it.