Blaming the National Rifle Association for the Parkland shootings is an attempt at deflecting blame, writes Glen Reynolds in USA Today. Much like Harvey Weinstein’s promise “to give the NRA my full attention,” after Harvey was exposed as a sexual predator, Broward County Sheriff Israel is offering the same. “It didn’t work for Weinstein and it’s not likely to work for Israel, either.” Mr. Reynolds continues:

But the bigger question is this: We have more government, at all levels, than we’ve ever had before. Yet failures like this keep happening. The FBI, after all, missed the Tsarnaevs (who committed the Boston Marathon bombing) despite being warned by the Russian government. It missed the 9/11 attacks even though it was investigating Zacarias Moussaoui — agents investigating Moussaoui hit so many roadblocks that they joked that Osama bin Laden must have had a mole in the Bureau HQ. And, of course, the San Bernardino shooters and Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen escaped the net as well.

People are being asked to trust the government to keep them safe, when the government is patently unable to do so. And then, when the government fails, it engages in blame-shifting deflection. Why should people listen? Increasingly, they won’t.

Read more from Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, here.