In today's New York Times, southern bureau reporter Richard Fausset goes up to Knoxville to report on the aftermath of Zaevion Dobson's death last December. If his name stands out, unlike the majority of black teenagers shot and killed daily in this country, it's because he's the high school football player who died while shielding two young women. ESPN reported on it. The president tearfully mentioned him in a speech. It was news because he was a hero, and because he played football.

But the tragedy of Dobson's death is still that — a tragedy. His 12-year-old cousin was just killed in an April shooting. And he's just one of 1142 children and teenagers who have already been killed or injured by a gun in 2016 (as of right now, 10:45 a.m. on May 5). Yet as Faussett's reporting points out, gun control is still too much of a political livewire to touch in Tennessee. Knoxville's liberal mayor Madeline Rogero won't touch it. Her chief of police, David Rausch, won't touch it, "[b]ecause then you polarize people,” he told Faussett. And the state legislature sure as hell won't do anything, because obviously, what we need is more guns. Like guns in parks and guns on campus and a new state sniper rifle. And so instead of any kind of action to prevent more shootings, we instead get legislators naming an overpass in honor of Dobson:



State Representative Eddie Smith, a Republican who represents Zaevion’s neighborhood, was instrumental in having the overpass named in his honor. “His first thought was to jump on top of those girls and protect them,” he said. “What high school student would have thought to react that way?” But Mr. Smith is among those who are adamant that gun control should not be part of the conversation. “Criminals will always find a way,” he said. “I’m a Christian, so I go back to Cain and Abel. It didn’t involve a gun. It involved a rock.”

We can't have gun control because of a story in the Bible about two people who historically did not exist? We can't have gun control because a criminal might use a rock instead?

Meanwhile, students at the University of Tennessee have written a set of poems for Dobson's mother, under the aegis of professor Marilyn Kallet (disclosure: a dear friend of mine):



“‘Senseless shooting spree,’ ” Ms. Kallet’s poem read, echoing the language of news reports, As if there could be

A meaningful shooting

Spree —



And that's all his mother is left with in the end, mere words, instead of her son. And those students will return school next fall on a campus where many more people can now legally carry a gun. But, hey, at least that overpass will have a new name, right?

Update (1:20 p.m.): Rogero's spokesperson Jesse Mayshark informs us that in January the mayor did specifically endorse the president's gun control policy, stating, "If we don't do anything more about it, then Zaevion did die in vain."