In the wake of the Annunciation shooting, Minnesota lawmakers are once again faced with a difficult question: What, if anything, would have made a difference?
Sen. Julia Coleman recently explained her vote against a violence prevention bill by saying that nothing in it would have stopped the shooting.
It is an understandable instinct. After tragedy, we search for certainty. We want to know what would have worked.
But the truth is, we do not know.
We do not know whether safe storage laws might have interrupted a chain of events, whether limits on high-capacity weapons would have changed the outcome, or whether earlier access to mental health care or opportunities to report warning signs might have shifted a trajectory long before that day.
And importantly, we do not know that these measures would not have helped.