It keeps happening

I was awakened today with the distressing news of another campus shooting, this one much closer to home. In the wee hours this morning, at Northern Arizona University’s Flagstaff campus, a gun left one person dead and three others hospitalized after a student opened fire on the others. We don't have a lot of information yet, but I can already hear the water cooler conversations and the chat on social media. When are we going to do something about this?

When indeed. It keeps happening. It isn't just some never-in-your-lifetime event. The Columbine High School massacre‎, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting‎, the Stockton schoolyard shooting, the shooting at Virginia Tech, the Umpqua Community College shootings which we just wrote about, and the list goes on and on. After each shooting there is sadness, there is outrage, there is deeply divided discussion about what to do, but in the end, no real changes are made, and tragically there are more shootings.

I don't have the answer. I really don't. I do know that we need to do something. This mass shootings on school campuses don't occur in other countries, so why here in the US? What are we doing wrong? Can we agree to come together and put an end to this loss of life? It keeps happening because we are doing anything about it, and while I don't have all the answers, I am absolutely certain that there is enough wisdom in our country to make a difference. I am sure we can end this. We just need to come together and do it.