The latest mass-casualty shooting spree — this one in Santa Barbara, Calif. — has touched off the usual debate about how to put a stop to these hideous spasms of murder. These random massacres have become, as I wrote in a previous column, an American psychosis.

Some, including the anguished father of one of the victims, point to guns and the National Rifle Association as the villains. Defenders of guns respond with the usual arguments — which I find persuasive. That much having been said, I wish people who defend the Second Amendment wouldn’t talk about their guns with such lascivious pleasure. Guns are necessary to self-defense. The right to own them is enshrined in the Constitution. Enough said. Let’s not worship them. Gun worship — by the Hollywood left, which uses it to sell tickets, and by the conservative right, which fetishizes guns — are both part of our national problem.