Brief diary on the shooting deaths this morning at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Ore. It was the all too familiar M.O. as the shooter was a lone gunman who entered the school with a rifle intent on killing people with suicide (by police or self-inflicted) the gunman's end game.
The National Journal.com's cover of this story ends by listing the now familiar list of specifics which outline these murderous events. Here are a few...
(1) The shooter used a rifle according to local police.
(2) Police are in the process of notifying the families of both the victim and the shooter.
(3) The police have tentatively identified the shooter, but they are not "confident enough at this point" to release any further details.
(4) A student tells "The Oregonian" that shots broke out in a locker room, and that a teacher was removed from school on a stretcher.
(5) A SWAT team and FBI agents arrived on school grounds to aid police, according to Portland-based KATU.com. Several tactical teams remain on the scene, and the investigation is ongoing.
The National Journal.com notes that "the school is one of Oregon's largest public schools, with more than 2,800 students. This year's graduation was scheduled for Thursday.
Also the Troutdale shooting is the 74th SCHOOL SHOOTING since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Newtown, Conn., in 2112.
The Mayor of Troutdale, Doug Daoust when interviewed on TV made the most profound sensible unemotional factual statement in response to the interviewer asking him what he thought of the fact that this shooting was the 74th school shooting since Sandy Hook. (The following is a not an exact quote but it is as close as I can recall of his remarks during the news conference.)
The Mayor answered , "These shooting will just continue until the American people put a stop to it. As long as we keep electing people to public office who will not take immediate steps to end these killings it will go on. It is not a partisan issue, and if those elected officials will not work to stop these school shootings the people must put them out of office and elect people who will stop these school shootings - otherwise it will continue."
I echo the Mayor's sentiment on this question - only I ask, "Just how many gun related deaths in the public space is it going to take before the America public gets fed up enough to step out of their individual "comfort zones" and ACT DECISIVELY to end it?