A 26-year-old student armed himself with two handguns and an assault rife last Thursday morning and headed for his Oregon community college on a killing spree. The Umpqua Community College is closed until tomorrow. Counting its dead, comforting its survivors.
With the 10 casualties in Oregon, the total deaths in the U.S. by mass shootings this year is 380. We are 274 days into the year; another 90 days to go. A brutal future that replicates the past is likely.
I get it, the NRA will make sure guns are not banned in this country. Gun ownership is in the Constitution--a second amendment right. But precious, innocent human beings are being sacrificed. Gun safety needs to be examined, analyzed, and made public law. As journalist Nicholas Kristof writes: We need an evidence-based public health approach so we can learn to coexist with guns in our society.
Otherwise, doing the same thing over and over again will get the same results--as the statistics are showing.
But they are more than numbers; they are human beings.
RIP
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