Three separate shootings so far today (Alexandria, VA, San Francisco and NYC)… and the day is still young. Its getting to be hard to look at the news updates on the phone…
On a different note, today is the 242nd birthday of the US Army. And happy flag day.
I agree. It is sad to turn on the news lately.
Add to that the deadly fire in a London high-rise apartment building. I’m very sad today.
And now a hostage situation in a Somali restaurant…
There’s so much anger. News fatigue is a real thing, yet I feel like we can’t let apathy prevail. It’s exhausting.
I’m pretty much on a news break, I don’t get why we are getting so intolerant and full of rage and it seems to be okay with everyone.
A combination of echo chamber news sources, demonization of political opponents, easy access to killing machines, and a general desensitization of the moral injunction against doing anyone bodily harm.
Since we have elected to do nothing as a collective about gun violence and mental health, IMO, we must make change individually through kindness. In an earlier report today, one of the news anchors on the scene mentioned an older woman had shown up with baked goods for the news crews because she assumed they might be stuck there and be hungry. If we could all be more like that, maybe we can change the narrative and spread respect and tolerance. Naive, perhaps, but I don’t know what else we can do given our current political situation.
I like that idea.
It won’t make a damn bit of difference at all, but I still like the idea.
And now an active shooter at Travis AFB near Sacramento. Busy day…
Eh – just another day in America.
I don’t see a whole lot of promise in the mental health part of the equation, given that about one-fourth of adults have a mental illness in any given year and one-half have a mental illness at some time in their lives. It’s just too many people, most of whom are not potentially violent.
We certainly could use an effective way of screening people for the potential for violence – and an effective way of dealing with that issue once it’s identified. But just screening for a history of mental illness isn’t going to work. It’s too crude a measure.
Sickening that this seems to happen over and over and over.
More effectively responding to people who commit domestic abuse (as this shooter apparently did) might help.
Glad to hear the lockdown at the AFB was a false alarm.
I’m actually more concerned about the London high-rise fire than the scattering of murders and shootings today. More attention needs to be paid to our crumbling infrastructure and to things that weren’t built safely in the first place.
I’m with you, Marian. There’s also the news that some governmental officials in Michigan have been charged with involuntary manslaughter because of deaths resulting from lead in the water supply. People dying because of negligence is terrible and widespread.
I can’t comment on this thread without getting political. 
The apartment building in London had gone through a major renovation recently. They think that the cladding that was added made it easier for the fire to spread up the building.
The list of things that were not dealt with properly or at all in the London high rise - hoarders, telling residents to stay put in an emergency instead of getting out, only one fire exit, lack of sprinklers, horrible.