Killings at Columbia Mall

1/28/2014

A few days ago, a young man, with two guns in his backpack , entered a local mall and killed two people before killing himself.  This was a tragic event but unfortunately these kind of shootings seem to be occurring more frequently.  

I remember well where I was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but my memory isn't so clear about the death of his brother.  But what I do remember about my teen years, is that random killings of innocent people was not the norm and so I spent those years cocooned against these types of tragedies.

Somewhere along the way to becoming an older woman, my daily newspaper seems to have more and more articles about random killings of innocent people.  Sometimes the shooter takes his own life afterwards, but not always.

Yesterday's paper said that the police had identified the shooter but not his motive.  I suppose the police are just doing what they are trained to do - investigate shootings and/or murders.  I can't help wonder how knowing what this young man's motive was, could be of any help to the police or the families.  It certainly won't ease the suffering of the families or help the number of employees and shoppers who hid in stores until the police arrived.

I suspect, but clearly don't know, but this young man might have been suffering from some kind of mental illness.  It's the only reason I can come up with for his actions on Saturday.  We'll never know.

What I do know is that the age of innocence or ignorance of what's happening in our country, is over and that's a shame.  The young children growing up today will, unfortunately, be exposed to more events as those that occurred on Saturday.

P