Shootings hit close to home, by Teresa Barensfeld

Here is a summary of mass shootings, prepared by columnist Robert Reich:

2014: 273

2015: 336

2016: 383

2017: 348

2018: 336

2019: 417

2020: 610

2021: 690

2022: 647

In the first three weeks of 2023: 39

As Reich says: “Friends, we do not have to live like this.”

Hitting close to home, by Teresa Barensfeld

Reich’s mass shootings piece is sobering. The latest one in Half Moon Bay, CA, was in the city where my daughter and her family live. My grandson's daycare went on lockdown and parents notified to pick up their children, as it is next to one of the farms. They live nearby.

When they were all home and safe, she texted me a link to the live news reporting on one of the local network affiliates, before the national news picked up on it. Terrifying.

I would bet good money that everyone is, by now, some degree close to these shootings, that is, either has been involved, injured, has a victim in their family, knows someone who was involved, victim or survivor or perpetrator. 

I have about three or four of these in my family, people who knew a shooter or victim. For example, my nephew was in Little League with one of the Columbine High School shooters. One of my younger cousins is a high school teacher in the Newtown school district; she knew the educators who were killed. She was traumatized for quite a while.