More Americans were killed in horrific mass shootings last month than were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the beginning of the year. Now, one tragic anomaly like that does not a trend story make, but the Daily Beast does have a pretty interesting little editorial on it today, which makes mention of last year's shooting at TVUUC:
Some have tied the rise in mass homicides to the deepening economic downturn--sort of a revenge-fueled root-cause theory. Others point to an unhinged copy-cat killing impulse. Clearly, desperation and violence are on the rise. What's on the decline is our ability to differentiate the violence--the murders get lumped together in a parade of breaking news headlines and then forgotten, assimilating unfiltered into our data-banks.
This bloodshed tally of the past month does not include the murder of an Illinois priest preaching at the pulpit on March 8, 2009. It does not include briefly media-fascinated mass murders like the killer who dressed up as Santa Claus this past holiday season, or the July 2008 shooting of two at a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. because of its allegedly "gay-friendly" policies.
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