A surprise, yes, but not as much as it should be: another mass shooting.
The shock, perhaps, was in the age of the majority of the murder victims. As President Obama observed:
The majority of those who died today were children. . . beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them—birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers—men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.
Beautiful little kids, yes.
The on-average 30+ people who are killed every day in this country also were, years ago or perhaps just the day before, beautiful little kids.
I don’t know that’s there’s anything anymore can be done. Over 300 million guns in this country, and the first response to every damned mass shooting—and how terrible is it that word “every”?—is to say no, no, this has nothing to do with guns.
Over three hundred million guns, and maybe it is too late, maybe there is nothing more to be done but to prepare for the next shooting. Run the teachers and students and employees and customers through drills, train the doctors and nurses, prepare the counselors, militarize the police.
Unless, of course, that isn’t enough, and you think that the problem is that not enough people were armed, that if only the teachers or the movie theatre ushers or the mall retail workers or the customers or the temple congregants had guns this all could have been prevented or stopped sooner.
Every person with a gun, every person a hero with a gun against every other person a villain with a gun.
AbsurdBeats 