As a resident of Michigan I've been following these events closely and I can say that while I'm deeply saddened, I'm hardly shocked. Rural and small-town Michigan is consumed with gun culture these days. In my tiny little village, members of the local church open-carry pistols to worship. They say they're doing it to protect themselves and their congregation, even though we live in a peaceful community with no history of violence, where people don't even lock their doors at night for the most part.

Obviously, being rural, we have deep-rooted hunting culture here, so people have shotguns and hunting rifles. But that's not the problem I'm talking about. People are worshiping assault rifles and pistols, weapons designed and sold for the express purpose of killing other human beings. There's a gun culture taking root that is shockingly new and shockingly disturbing.

But it's becoming so normalized that the idea that somebody is searching for ammunition on Google isn't remarkable in many eyes. They're just exercising their god-given right to be armed to the teeth. They're American patriots.

I deplore that, but it's really how people think. Many people in small-town Michigan would be unlikely to be alarmed because a teenager is participating in the gun culture that has become entirely normalized. "Searching for ammunition? Yeah, so? He's probably excited to try out his new Christmas present. Good for him."

Combine that with the shooter's explanation that his drawings were about an online comic he was creating and you can end up with adults who aren't all that alarmed.

Note that I'm not defending the school officials. I think they reacted inappropriately and neglected their professional duties. I'm observing that radical right-wing gun culture in Michigan, as in many parts of the United States, is eroding our sense of alarm and sensitivity to danger. I predict that things are going to get much worse before they get better, if they do get better.