The Smell of Death

The smell of death surrounds us. Ten dead in a school in Houston, Texas. Seventeen dead in Parkland, Florida. Fifty-eight dead at a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Four dead in a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee—a number that would be higher, but for the heroic intervention of a bystander.

Heroin overdose deaths continue to rise. Suicide rates are on the rise. Deaths caused by alcoholism and obesity are on the rise. These are among the leading factors in the decline of life expectancy in the United States.

Commentators wring their hands. “We need gun control!” some insist. The overdose-reversal drug naloxone is handed out to local police. More funding is directed to suicide-prevention efforts.