Tag: mass shootings

As it does with every headline, my stomach dropped and I fought back tears, because I can't believe this is still happening. I can't believe that we still see multiple headlines a month, sometimes a week, where there is yet another school or mass shooting.

As a father and a teacher, each school shooting brings a visceral reaction.  I recognize the young, white, male perpetrators, filled with great pain, confusion, and isolation.

Many politicians who did register the shooting, again sent their thoughts and prayer.

Kelley is just the latest in a long line of men with documented records of domestic abuse who went on killing sprees well after police became aware of their propensity for violence: Stephen Paddock (58 dead, Las Vegas, Oct. 1); James Hodgkinson (attack on members of Congress, Alexandria, Va., June 14); Robert Lewis Dear (the self-described “warriors for the babies,” killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Nov. 27, 2015); and Omar Mateen (49 killed, Orlando, June, 2016).

I don’t want to write about shootings anymore. I don’t want to “Look for the helpers." I don’t want to try to find some evidence of a higher power in the bloodstains.

The front cover of the New York Daily News for Thursday takes a strong stance against how some politicians are reacting to the San Bernardino shooting with calls for prayer instead of tighter gun control laws.

As a whole, as a culture, we are addicted to guns, and we are addicted to violence.