Someone wrote this on Facebook today. I thought it the most brilliant and sensible thought on the topic:
"This week’s tragedies point to serious issues in our society, and much as we would like to answer the question of “why?” with a simple explanation, be it guns, or broken families, online games, lack of values or a type of music; the truth is that we need to look at more complex explanations than one simple thing. We need to examine ourselves as
a nation from top to bottom; from the way we resolve conflicts at the global and international level, to our lack of dialogue in our national and state discourse. We need to look at the ways in which groups of people portray other groups of people as worthy of hate, and possible targets of violence, and how we demonize those who have different values, simply because they are not our own. And we need to look at ourselves; right down to the very ways we are there for each other as family members and friends and even to perfect strangers. How do we, at all these levels, participate in the politics, and indeed the very humanity, of connecting people to each other and to ourselves? How do we bind ourselves, one to another, locally, nationally, globally, in ways that make these events so rare, that it would be impossible for a news agency to create a “timeline” of shooting tragedies upon which to report? How do we, through our thoughts, words and deeds, work toward a world in which we don’t fear each other, fearing only for our personal rights, but we work toward a world in which we actively seek out ways to look out for each other, to strengthen the bonds that we have for each other, to allow people to not only see the good in others, but in themselves, so as to make these types of tragedies unthinkable."
Pretty spot-on, if you ask me.