There was another mass shooting Wednesday, this time leaving nine people dead, just one of the latest mass shootings of the 230-plus this year, according to a tally maintained by The New York Times.
As The Times reported, “The Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one with four or more people injured or killed, not including the perpetrator, counted more than 600 such shootings in 2020, compared with 417 in 2019.”
We need to recognize the trauma and stress that we as a society have endured because of COVID-19, the collapse of our social structure, the crippling of an economy and the way the racial justice protests have unsettled some people.
You add that to an already violent society, one saturated with guns and becoming even more saturated every day, and violence – including mass shootings – is a natural, horrific, inevitable outgrowth.
The violence isn’t just shootings. The incivility trickles down.