A 16-year-old gunman shot two students at his Denver-area high school last Wednesday before killing himself, a terrible act of violence that received fleeting attention due to the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at nearly the same time.

While the crimes were starkly different, the two suspects shared a common philosophy: a devotion to the darkest corners of the internet, where no joke is off limits and mass killers are glorified for their heinous acts. As a piece in The Atlantic this month makes clear, “The mass shooters are performing for one another,” a conclusion with deeply worrisome implications for our youth and our communities.

The gruesome shooting death of Kirk, a 31-year-old conservative commentator, at an on-campus event last week inflamed a cycle of alleg

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