As Americans go through the familiar ritual of asking how this could happen, the National Rifle Association has a stark answer articulated by former head Harlon Carter more than 20 years ago. America's gun death toll, he explained, was simply "the price of freedom."

To Carter, no matter what atrocities stem from America's unfettered gun culture, they were a small price to pay for the unparalleled "freedom" of Americans to own virtually any gun of their own choosing: from pocket-size derringers to military-bred 50-caliber sniper rifles that can destroy aircraft and penetrate a half inch of armor plating from a mile away.

Carter's words have shaped the world view of today's NRA. They also lead to a more important question. At what point will Americans agree that the price exacted by guns -- the gun lobby's "price of freedom" -- is simply too high?

An all-too-familiar pattern has already emerged after the Red Lake High School shooting in Minnesota -- the worst school shooting in the United States since Columbine. Attention has focused on virtually everything except the actual tools -- reportedly two handguns and a shotgun -- that made the massacre possible.

Did the school have metal detectors? Was the security guard armed? Did the unique struggles faced by the residents of Indian reservations play a role? What about the shooter's postings on a white supremacist Web site, and did other students help plan the attack? What have we learned since Columbine?

Each of these questions is legitimate. Yet while other Western, industrialized nations face their own civic, social and economic problems, they understand the direct link between gun availability and gun violence and severely restrict access to specific classes of firearms. The result is that other countries simply don't experience mass shootings as commonly seen in the United States. The United States is unique in the ease with which it allows its citizens to act on their rage through the barrel of a gun.

Even when Americans' attention is focused on gun policy, a timid mindset takes hold. Advocates and policy-makers look for minor, "common sense" policy proposals into which they can shoehorn the discrete circumstances of a particular attack.

They are unwilling to acknowledge the basic fact that America's gun violence problem is a direct result of the ease with which Americans can obtain virtually any gun of their choice for almost any intent. Why talk about banning handguns when you can focus on trigger locks?

Mass shootings today are treated almost like tornadoes or earthquakes -- unstoppable forces of nature that we must endure. The harsh reality is that too many Americans love their guns more than they love their children. Each new shooting -- regardless of the number of people killed or the formerly "safe" environment violated by the sound of gunfire -- seems less to shock us than to inure us to the next horrible incident.

In April, when parents across America think twice about sending their children to school on April 20, the sixth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, remember Harlon Carter's words: We are just paying "the price of freedom."