No matter. There's no making moral sense of the political zombies who take orders from the National Rifle Association.

But there are civic and political leaders who can see how rampant gun violence can damage their economies. Nashville has been a hot growing city, but corporations considering a move there must be taken aback by this latest mass murder.

Such outrages are happening elsewhere, but this one happened in a state where a woman being treated for severe mental disturbance and whose parents didn't want her to have guns was able to legally purchase seven of them, including two assault-style weapons. Tennessee already allows permitless carry, with no requirement for training. And, of course, guns don't have to be licensed.

Bills are now before the state legislature that would let 18-year-olds carry long guns in public without a license. It should be hard recruiting high-quality workers to a place where they must assess whether a fellow shopper carrying a rifle is OK or will explode if you accidently bump your cart into his?

There is widespread support for universal background checks, for safe storage, for red-flag laws to prevent someone who might commit harm purchase an AR-15. Only 19 percent "strongly oppose" more gun laws.

Very few airline passengers want to crash their planes. Nonetheless, we accept stringent security checks at airports.

It may be true that you can't entirely stop someone willing to sacrifice her own life from killing others, you don't have to swamp America with the killing machines that most anyone — criminal, nuts or both — can buy. And today's are more powerful than the weaponry used in Vietnam.

And it's not just the guns themselves. It's the worship of them. It's the politicians who send out Christmas cards of themselves grinning as they brandish assault rifles. There isn't much we can do about these people's right to mock a religion of peace, but we can easily vote them out of office.

Nashville police prevented a bigger horror by their fast and brave response. But suppose road work had slowed the response by two minutes? Are we supposed to find solace in there being only six dead?

When employers consider relocating, they may well look at numbers in addition to tax rates. They may include the number of gun deaths per 100,000 population — which is 3.7 in Massachusetts but 21.3 in Tennessee.

And as the Nashville example shows, putting children in private schools is not enough to protect them from gun violence.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.