<p>Hope all cc’ers in the area are safe and sound.</p>
<p>3 are dead. One possibly the shooter. This stuff needs to stop.</p>
<p>It’s sad how this doesn’t even surprise me anymore. I wish all the best to the victim’s families. </p>
<p>Instead of bringing us to a tipping point, these mass shootings are becoming weekly events that don’t surprise us anymore. Very sad. </p>
<p>This is sad and scary. Having lived in MD many years before moving to NOVA, I think of Columbia as safe. And DD is very interested in a job there after she graduates in May.</p>
<p>Appears shooter is among the dead. </p>
<p>It won’t be a tipping point, ever. If anything it’s just producing panic that’s making people go out and buy MORE guns. </p>
<p>That makes 3 colleges and a mall in about a week. 
They are not weekly, they are daily. I’ve decided to stop giving money to politicians, and start giving it to special interest groups only. That seems to be all that influences our politics these days, so I guess I need to put my money where the influence is…</p>
<p>Yesterday’s shooting at South Carolina State University marks the 36th American school shooting since Newtown, and the sixth in just 10 days. So, yes, intparent, almost daily.</p>
<p>I just heard about this on the radio while driving around. The shooting took place in the food court and they think the shooter may be dead because a gun and ammo were found near one body.</p>
<p>Also, Columbia Mall is a “fancy” mall, and Maryland is a state that doesn’t make it too easy to get guns. Not sure what that means except it makes me even more depressed.</p>
<p>What Hayden said. Sigh. </p>
<p>I live in Columbia, and had actually made plans to be at the mall today. One of my friends was there and was close enough to see people getting shot. You hear about these stories all the time now but it feels totally different when it happen 10 minutes away from you.</p>
<p>Yes…just after I posted above, I looked at the map and realized the mall is just a few miles from D1’s boyfriend’s house, and she is staying there this weekend. They often do stuff like shopping when there, as she lives in the city and it isn’t easy to hit a mall regularly without a car. I phoned, and she didn’t pick up… so I texted and asked for a response just to make me feel better. She is fine, but I HATE having to worry that she might have been there (or anyplace) where this could happen. :(</p>
<p>I have relatives in Columbia, but they aren’t mall shoppers.</p>
<p>It’s about 25 miles from us – have been there from time to time. Someone was murdered at a 7-11 near us the other night (box knife, not guns). We fill the cars at that station and shop the Safeway in that center. So tired of senseless violence.</p>
<p>I too live in Howard County. Someone in my family is at the mall at least once a week. They have announced the names of the victims. A 21 year old and a 25 year old from fairly close by. Hug your kids when you can. You never know what’s going to happen.</p>
<p>We’re fortunate the guns used lately have been shotguns.</p>
<p>I reached the point a long time ago where I just expect this to happen. I just assume it will happen where I am eventually, I think if other people are so unlucky that it happens to them, I am not so special, sooner or later it will affect me, too. I don’t think about it all the time or anything like that, but I think in the back of my mind I am expecting it. Which is scary, and unhealthy, and sad.</p>
<p>Sad that a new discussion every time this happens feels redundant, too. </p>