Vox Sentences: Where did all the workers go?

The gun-control debate rejoined; the share of Americans in the workforce is at its lowest since 1977; and the Secretary of Education resigns.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Regulating guns, regulating people

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• The Douglas County Sheriff's Department has released the names of the victims in yesterday's mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

  [NBC Nightly News via Twitter]

• Meanwhile, the ATF recovered 13 weapons belonging to shooter Chris Harper Mercer: six that he took with him to the college, and seven at his home. All were legally purchased.

  [The Guardian / Lauren Gambino, Ben Quinn and Jason Wilson]

• The biographical details that have emerged for Mercer fit the cultural stereotype for mass shooters: he was a loner who was very easily irritated and clearly disturbed.

  [New York Times / Ian Lovett and Liam Stack]

• That stereotype is a trap. Mental health doesn't predict mass shootings. There are behavioral factors associated with violence — mental health isn't one of them.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• And when it comes to mass shootings, those behavioral factors are too broad to predict behavior at all — unless you're going to lock up every "angry young man." It's much easier to regulate guns than people.

  [Science of Us / Jesse Singal]

• Not everyone wants to do either. Jeb Bush was criticized by liberals for, during a town hall in South Carolina, using the phrase "stuff happens" in a discussion about mass shootings.

  [Ryan Lizza via Twitter]

• Bush's full argument, as Brian Beutler points out, wasn't that the shooting wasn't tragic; it was that sometimes, policy motivated by the reflexive urge to "do something" costs more in lost freedoms than it gains in prevention.

  [The New Republic / Brian Beutler]

• In the abstract, Bush has a point. See this 2007 article by David Foster Wallace, which uses similar logic to talk about lost freedom in the War on Terror.

  [The Atlantic / David Foster Wallace]

A very, very bad jobs report

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

• September was a really disappointing month for jobs. The US added only 142,000 — way below the 200,000 or more that economists were predicting.

  [US News / Andrew Soergel]

• The sluggish growth is probably due to continued global insecurity (notably in China). That insecurity kept the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates last month. The jobs report could keep them from raising interest rates in December, too.

  [NPR / Marilyn Geewax]

• The more depressing statistic is that labor force participation rate — the fraction of all Americans over 16 who are working (as opposed to unemployed or simply not looking for work) — is the lowest it's been since 1977.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• The falling participation rate is a long-term trend during the Obama administration. Some of it is due to slow business growth. But some is simply due to Baby Boomer retirement and young adults staying in school onger.

  [Quartz / Matt Phillips]

• At the same time, though, there's still a higher-than-normal percentage of people who are underemployed — an indication that the US could still need millions more jobs.

  [Bloomberg View]

• None of these rates, however — the unemployment, underemployment or nonparticipation rates — are anywhere near the 42 percent "real unemployment rate" claimed by current Republican front-runner Donald J. Trump. That number is just nonsense.

  [Vox / Dan Diamond]

Only Vilsack remains

Pool/Getty Images

• Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced he'll be resigning from the Cabinet in December.

  [Washington Post / Juliet Eilperin, Lyndsey Layton and Emma Brown]

• Duncan's most closely associated with the "Race to the Top" grant program, which tried to incentivize states to carry out education reforms (and led to, among other things, the widespread adoption of Common Core curriculum standards).

  [New York Times / Steven Brill]

• Teachers' unions really disliked Race to the Top, and really dislike Duncan. The NEA called for his resignation over a year ago.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Unfortunately for them, Duncan's announced successor — current deputy secretary John King — is even less sympathetic to union's positions than Duncan is.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• With Duncan's resignation, the last remaining original member of the Obama Cabinet is...Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

  [Wikipedia]

MISCELLANEOUS

A random business school student owned Google.com for about one minute this past Tuesday. [LinkedIn / Sanmay Ved]

• This is the conspiracy theory we need right now: "Avril Lavigne was killed off and replaced with an actress."

  [Vice / Ryan Bassil]

• 8 commericals you've probably never seen that birthed 8 clichés you've definitely heard and said.

  [Atlas Obscura / Eric Grundhauser]

• "Trunk" came very close to conducting a mass shooting. This is why he didn't.

  [Esquire / Tom Junod]

• A history of standup comedy, from Ed Sullivan to Louis CK.

  [Splitsider / Wayne Federman]

VERBATIM

"She has skin as thick as an old crocodile." [Christine Lagarde on Hillary Clinton to Huffington Post / Isaac Chotiner]

• "My chief obstacle at this point is General Scott, who is incompetent as he is traitorous, and often objects to my having barrels of fresh littleneck clams shipped up from Connecticut every morning, as has long been my custom."

  [The Toast / Mallory Ortberg]

• "Most babies in Isaac’s situation still die. Development is the process of making that not so."

  [Ryan C. Briggs]

• "Researchers estimate that driverless cars could, by midcentury, reduce traffic fatalities by up to 90 percent. Which means that, using the number of fatalities in 2013 as a baseline, self-driving cars could save 29,447 lives a year."

  [The Atlantic / Adrienne LaFrance]

• "Can you imagine sharing an office with Wes Anderson? He’d spend half the day sharpening the pencils on his desk so they lined up just so. I’m exhausted just thinking about it."

  [AV Club / Katie Rife]

WATCH THIS

How silkworms make silk [YouTube / Joe Posner and Joss Fong]

Vox / Joe Posner and Joss Fong

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