More violence.
More death.
More proclamations.
More searching for answers in the wrong places.
I do not believe that there are easy answers to this kind of violence. Why? Well to solve a problem, you first have to understand what the problem is, and quite frankly, we just haven't managed to tackle that yet in this country.
Ideologues on the political Left will tell you that this is another outcome of our failing to address the easy access to handguns. Maybe there should be more restriction of handgun availability, but in the end just focusing on this is a bit like blaming the car when a drunk driver kills someone.
Ideologues on the political Right will use this to stoke fears of "now they will take away your guns", solely, pretty much, for purposes of raising money. While part of American weeps, the NRA's money machine will be getting all greased up for another round of pandering.
Those of us in the Center will be left just shaking our heads in a mixture of confusion and disgust.
We, as a society, to look into why mental health issues are so rampant. What drives people to such depths of despair and anger that they act on the worst of impulses? Maybe it's that we've managed to define things like "happiness" and "success" in terms such that they can never be achieved. That's truly a recipe for disaster. When Donald Trump's narcissism screams to the world that happiness and success means being a billionaire, despite the fact that Donal Trump seems like one of the most miserable men* on the planet, well then you've got a totem for modern United States that breeds this kind of thing.
The bottom line? The real solution to rampant violence isn't going to come any time soon, pretty much because most of the country simply doesn't want to look for it. Maybe we are too afraid of what we will find.
(*) While I am not a fan of the late President Reagan, I do miss his iconic "happy conservative warrior" attitude. Happiness seems like one of the many things that Donald Trump can't buy.
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