If you believe that there is an underlying plan to the world that explains the unfathomable, you may consider that the second massive murder in California in only three days could shed a fresh and shocking the nation’s tragic history with guns and violence.
There were so many strange similarities — two older Asian-American men, both apparently using semiautomatic handguns, both stopping at two potential killing sites, both with motives still unclear, allegedly opened fire on unsuspecting innocents in what were described as small, largely-immigrant-populated, tightly-knit communities and killed, between them, 18 people.
A nation, shocked by the grim faces of TV news anchors, was stunned. A nation was stunned. Communities were shocked.
As we’ve learned there wasn’t anything particularly shocking about the events in California other than the fact that the perpetrators did not necessarily fit the stereotype of violent young men who had an easy access to deadly firearms of the military type.
These murders were not like the others. They were disturbed, older people with access to lethal, military-style weapons. They didn’t require any elaborate plan to carry out their gruesome business.
Did the news of one murder caused the other to be triggered? It seems that way But who is able to tell? Are mental health issues an element? It’s possible however, there are mental health issues that are similar in every country in which shootings of this kind occur, either often or almost never.
If we’d been taught to see mass killings as Columbine-like shootings, or racist massacres such as the ones in El Paso or Pittsburgh or Charleston, S.C., we’ve discovered — at least in Colorado that shootings happen all over the world, no matter the reason, and with no reason whatsoever.
A theater, a supermarket A school, a chapel, ballroom dancing studio and a nursery for plants, an LGBTQ nightclub nail salons and gang shoots shooters from domestic violence. The list goes on and on because the killings will never stop. The mass murders continue because access to guns that can take the lives of many people in a short amount of time is never ending.
If you’re seeking a less conventional shooting, this one that occurred in between two California mass shootings. This one was in Des Moines, Iowa, in which two people were wounded and killed and an 18-year old with an 9mm pistol as well as an extension clip arrested. We didn’t even notice it.
