Suzano shooting draws worrying comparisons with U.S. school massacres

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” “Kids these days are addicted to violent video games.” In the U.S., platitudes such as these were spouted by officials and gun rights activists after the Columbine High School shooting of 1999. Twenty years later, the same inane remarks have been heard in Brazil, from the mouths of important figures in the sitting government, in the wake of Wednesday’s school shooting in Suzano, Greater São Paulo.

During morning recess in the Raul Brasil high school, former pupils Guilherme Taucci Monteiro, 17, and Luiz Henrique de Castro entered the building and opened fire on students and teachers. Five students were killed, as well as two members of staff. The gunmen then committed suicide.

School shootings are not a recurring phenomenon in Brazil, and one must go back to...