A leaked investigation photo from the Las Vegas hotel suite used by PaddockBild Exclusive/Polaris

In the opening monologue to his late-night TV show on Monday, an emotional Jimmy Kimmel channeled what millions of Americans were thinking about the gun massacre on the Las Vegas Strip that killed at least 58 people and injured more than 500 others. Kimmel described it as an inexplicable attack by “a very sick person” with an “insane voice in his head.” On the brink of tears, Kimmel said, “We wonder why, even though there’s probably no way to know why a human being would do something like this.”

It was a powerful moment, and yet these widely shared comments from Kimmel also reinforced a misconception that invariably marks the national discourse in the aftermath of indiscriminate mass…