The Republican Party’s fetishization of guns and its fetishization of insurrection — one that’s reached a hysterical pitch since Donald Trump’s presidency — go hand in hand. Guns are at the center of a worldview in which the ability to launch an armed rebellion must always be held in reserve. And so in the wake of mass shootings, when the public is most likely to clamor for gun regulations, Republicans regularly shore up gun access instead.

As it happens, in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, before the authorities knew who McVeigh was, he was pulled over during a routine traffic stop and then arrested for carrying a gun without a permit. In 2019, however, Oklahoma legalized permitless carry. Under the new law, McVeigh would have been let go.