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Another mass shooting after 10 pm at a Walmart in Virginia.

When will this madness end? You know people were in there happily doing last-minute shopping for Thanksgiving dinners. Or early Christmas shopping. Now families will have to gather to bury their deceased loved ones.

Such sadness. So unnecessary. So wrong.

it makes no sense. None at all.

I don't understand it.

It seems evil prevails.

Will it ever stop?

No.

This isnt going to be taken well but in my opinion it's not even about the accessibility of weapons anymore. They have been around for ages and mass shootings weren't a thing.

I feel it's a lack of accountability and appropriate punishment.

I feel the use of "mental health issues" is being used way to much and only as an excuse. Yes mental health is a valid thing but the fact is after the last few years EVERYONE has been suffering in one way or another.

Not Everyone goes on a shooting spree.

As a single species we have successfully found every conceivable way to divide and separate ourselves to such a degree that we fail to see eachother as fellow humans, fail to have empathy and care for our fellow man/woman and are wrongly focused all on ourselves.

I can be completely empathetic and caring for everyone yet still believe that those who break societies rules and the just plain basic rule of DO NOT KILL, should suffer harsh punishments.

So no I don't think it's ever going to stop. I do think body Armour is going to become a more common thing though.

It almost makes me want to just stay HOME! It seems no place is safe now. I deal with people who have murdered people. Most claim to have an excuse, a reason - crime of passion, etc or they claim innocence. But these mass shootings are just senseless. I tend to think the murders in Idaho of the four students might be someone who has killed previously - perhaps a serial killer.

In my area we have had a man in a large white delivery truck - like an Amazon truck without markings - stalking women as they take walks, especially walking their dogs. Several incidents involving this man. He escalated this week by exiting his truck and actually chasing a woman and her dog. She ran two blocks until she found some people to run to. Broad daylight and this maniac is hunting women to harm.

I live in an open carry state and honestly it makes me feel that I can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. I never get into debates about the second amendment as NO ONE changes their mind from that type of debate. Useless to even try to discuss it.

Feeling so bad for the families who have lost people they love in the past two weeks - and even before that. Holidays, I'd think, are the worst time for them.

So weird, I had someone ask if I had heard about this shooting today while I was out.

It does make me want to stay home. Even up here I hear about such horrible things happen and want to hide away. Especially hide my kids away.

I'm freaked out just letting dd get off the bus and walk up the driveway alone.

When I was in school in the 70’s and 80’s we all carried pocket knives, it was allowed, they were tools. No one in my school was ever assaulted with a knife. There were plenty of fist fights but no one ever pulled out a knife.

Times are definitely different, It just makes no sense why these are becoming so regular.

Maybe it's because they are so regular that they ARE regular. It's almost become normal.

My kids school has more lock down drills than they do fire drills. That says something right. You can't just walk into the school anymore, you have to be buzzed in.

Ever since covid there's been an increase in security at malls and grocery stores. Never saw thst before.

And yeah, Tanner, I used to carry a pocket knife on me all the time. I don't anymore. My dad and brother still carry multiple ones on their belts though.

It’s just so sad this is what people end up doing — shooting innocent people.

All the publicity of this behavior certainly doesn’t help.

I wish I had an answer. We had a shooting in a supermarket one morning. Employee was fired and shot and killed the store manager and injured two other employees. I was going to run to that supermarket about 20 minutes before the shooting occurred. I would have been in the store when it happened.

As a sign of the times, H and I have been on a newly formed team/committee at our church to make proposals to our church board on what to do if we have an active shooter/armed intruder. We have studied various programs, watched videos, had discussions, etc. The experience has left me fearful, making me realize this could happen any public place I visit. In the last few months that we've been studying this, my awareness in public has become heightened and has left me feeling fearful in certain places. I don't 'do' a lot of public places these days, but when I do, I am always looking around me in a way I never did. I'm always looking for the nearest exit. Ironically, the one place I feel the safest these days is the airport, once we've passed through TSA. But outside of security? Don't feel safe.

Sometime after the New Year holiday, we will be conducting a drill at our church. Just like kids do in school.

For those who are feeling fearful as I am, educating yourself can be at least a little liberating. I'd encourage you to google 'Run, Hide, Fight' videos so you have a plan if you ever find yourself in a situation like this. This approach is recommended by many law enforcement agencies. It is ingrained enough in my head now, that I wouldn't feel completely helpless were I to find myself in an active shooter situation.

Most importantly, it's just pathetic that we have to hear these stories over and over and over. We are a smart nation; why can't we come up with a solution?

Watch the news. Every night begins with bad things that happened in the country, 8n your town. Violence is everywhere on tv. People are desensitized. It's not right and we can change it. Where are the peace protests and gatherings? A mass killing gets a little coverage then its gone.

Also a trend toward look at me on social media.

If we lock everyone up it still does no good. We have to ask why these crimes happen 8n the first place. Why does a young person want to go on a killing rampage instead of look to a hopeful future?

Why Why and why?

We don't have to have a future of mass surveillance to be safe either. That's something that will be put forward as an answer. Kids shouldn't be going through an airport check station to go to school. I remember when kids went to school and nobody was worried about them walking there and back. Kids weren't targets.

People are smart. We can figure this out. It's not the weapons, it's the ideas people have. Why do they want to do this and how do they get the ideas and think it's a solution for what's troubling them.

There will always be ways to injure and kill. I feel like weapons will always be around even if they were all illegal. People are 3 d printing them now.

GDM and I were discussing this over the weekend.

FULL DISCLOSURE--we are both licensed gun owners. He hunts, I do not. I plink about with sporting clays at the range, but that's about it. All firearms are secured in both of our homes--we are huge believers in gun safety. Both of us have taken the appropriate classes, and he's a veteran as well.

So, our opinion is that we need to ask what has changed between the 50s, 60s, and 70s. What environmental factors are different. What came to mind with both of us are (in no particular order):

--Proliferation of violent and often realistic video games. I cannot help but wonder if that gives an impressionable person a numbness to violence and a lack of understanding that real life is different.

--Drug culture and the glamorization of successful drug criminals, particularly in urban areas.

--Proliferation of overly realistic and violent movies and television. Again, does it desensitize one to gun crime?

--Untreated mental illness (and lack of understanding of why we have so many more people who suffer from it)

--The "Me" culture of entitlement and the lack of work ethic and delayed gratification

--Poor social skills caused by the "everyone is a winner" culture and the excessive amount of time young people spend on-line instead of playing kickball or other games with friends and neighbors or settling in with a good book.

--Lack of family involvement. Kids suffer from a lack of family meals that promote conversation (I have a no cell phone rule at my table). Today's economic issues have meant that many parents work long hours and aren't involved.

--Lack of religious involvement/religion practiced as a family

You know what's interesting about this list (whether it's right or wrong)?

No amount of "gun control" or "weapons bans" is going to address the issue if ANY of these are root causes (and I firmly believe some of them are).

We're not asking the hard questions here, in my opinion. We're looking for the "easy" fix. The "feel-good." And we're wide of the mark.

Cat

--Proliferation of violent and often realistic video games.

Wonder no more. Violent crime has gone down since the introduction of violent video games. Other studies have shown no link between video games and violent behavior.

I would also add, all of those observations that supposedly answer why this is happening, fail to address one obvious note - all of those things also occur in other developed nations, and they don't have the problem with mass shootings that we do. They all have drug problems, mental health issues, violent video games, a sense of entitlement, etc. Yet, no one is walking in on LGBTQ-friendly clubs and schools and shooting them up.

As for the younger shooters. I have to say the lack of parental involvement OR the parents are violent themselves. Condoning violence. The father of the recent Club Q shooter is bragging that he taught his son to be tough and violent as that is the way to get through life. His mother is just as violent. Some people just should not be parents.

Catwoman, you make some excellent points.

Catwoman,

I agree with your points and was trying to organize my thoughts to respond. But you said almost everything I was thinking.

My opinion, and to answer Number4, I think the key difference here in the US compared to the rest of the world mirrors what we saw with the pandemic. There is no sense of duty or responsibility to society as a whole. An individual’s rights and desires are apparently more important than any possible societal greater good. I believe that is the key difference that makes it more likely that some disgruntled asshole is going to shoot up a place of business or crowd of total strangers. If we couldn’t convince people to endure some minor inconvenience or discomfort for the sake of public health with hundred of thousands of people dying, we certainly aren’t gonna be getting through to marginal types who are ready tending toward violence

Maybe I’m just jaded. I know I’m terribly sad.

Several mass killings have been done with vehicles and we can't ban those. However, we do have laws that require people to register those vehicles, so we know who they are.

I used to have an old Irish prayer on my bulletin board. It said .... ""May those who love us, love us; and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping."

Most of these killers are regular people. People with families and jobs. We can't know them by their limping.

I just know It is appalling. I do try to stay situationally aware. Since moving to this conglomerate of 55 plus neighborhoods, I will not go to the local Walmart, grocery store or Kohls. Weekly purse snatching and other crime occurs. Me in my electric wheelchair would be a prime target especially since my service dog hasn’t passed her cgc. So I use instacart and drive 10 miles to the shopping area near my old house.

The brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon used a pressure cooker (I was present at this event, albeit in my office tower opposite the finish line on the street where the bombings happened--trust me, it's terrifying). Timothy McVeigh used a truck and fertilizer. Others have used vehicles. The yet-uncaught killer who murdered four University of Idaho students used a knife. Violence is violence, and we're not asking the hard questions. And yes, I do believe that not teaching self-sacrifice for "greater good" is one of the issues. We're very much an independent, "me" culture here in the US. Sometimes that is to our benefit; other times it is not.

As a gun owner, I believe strongly in having to pass a background check and take a certified class to legally own a firearm. I think we have an issue here in the US in that we do this state-by-state vs. having one set of federal standards. It took me 2 years to get a Massachusetts firearms license. If I wanted to go on a shoot-em-up, I would have resorted to the very healthy black market for firearms, which is another issue.

In MA, you have to have a firearms permit to buy ammunition, which I think is appropriate (not that it's easy to find with all the supply chain issues we have). However, there's always the black market, so we're back to yet another unsolved (and unaddressed) issue.

Banning one type of weapon over another is only going to shift the problem, not solve it. I do agree with limiting magazines, for example. There's no reason for a private citizen to have a magazine of 50 rounds.

What distresses me is all the focus on "assault weapons" and no focus on why someone would pick up ANY weapon and take someone's life.

Cat