That’s essentially the argument made by the defendant in the case discussed in this story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The defendant, a student a West Georgia College, says that his mind was blank at the time he shot and killed the white students, but that he decided to buy the gun because his anthropology studies convinced him that white people needed to “mend” because of the harm they’ve done, especially slavery.

In the wake of all the other recent gun violence, shouldn’t we ban anthropology courses since they can lead to lethal violence? If a complete ban goes too far (after all, the First Amendment does protect freedom of speech), shouldn’t we insist on background checks for all students who want to enroll in anthropology courses to make sure we aren’t allowing mentally unstable people to take courses that could cause them to commit crimes? And how about lawsuits against the professors at West Georgia, the school itself, and the publishers of books used in the courses since they’re all responsible for the shootings.