From the very beginning, this year's Super Bowl – the championship game of American football – was, almost inexplicably, fodder for US culture wars. Large swathes of the American right embraced a conspiracy theory that the Deep State had ushered the Kansas City Chiefs to the big game as a "psyop" meant to give more exposure to pop superstar Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – both "liberals."
But a deadly shooting at the Chiefs' victory parade on Wednesday was a reminder of the more serious US culture war over gun violence. One person was killed and 21 were wounded in an incident that wrecked a celebration of the team's second consecutive championship. Police arrested three suspects.
The context: Kansas City, MO, last year saw record homicides, even as gun violence in most large US cities has been declining after a pandemic-related spike. The shooting is virtually assured to provoke the usual debate between those who say gun violence is a gun problem and those who say it's a mental health problem. Meanwhile, a solid majority of Americans continue to favor tighter gun control laws.