58 Dead, 515 Wounded

I wake up this morning to the news that a new record has been set in my country for deaths in a mass shooting event. 50 killed and over 200 wounded is the new standard for American violence. A 64 year old man named Stephen Paddock opened fire from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel with an automatic weapon into a crowd of 30,000 people gathered below for a country music concert in Las Vegas. A SWAT team eventually burst into his room and killed him. His female companion, a petite Asian woman named Marilou Danley, is being questioned in police custody at this hour. At this point, no motive has been assigned and not much is known of Mr. Paddock other than the fact that he is an elderly retired white guy going through a divorce who likes to gamble.

I scrolled through the pictures and videos from the scene, courtesy of a British news service, the U.K. Daily Mail, and note that it is always the British press that gives me information like this first. It's odd but consistently true. This sort of thing used to fill me with sadness. In the past a mass shooting would enrage me. Now, I flip through the pictures and shrug. Now, I brace myself for a week of boilerplate shrieking from politicians. I wait for my Facebook wall to fill with some new solidarity icon for the victims and their families, then the inevitable memes that will follow. I will quickly get tired of the calls to Pray for the Las Vegas Victims. Why have I become so jaded? This....

-April 18, 2017 Kori Ali Muhammad shoots dead three people before being arrested by police and charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

-June. 12, 2016 Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

-Feb. 25, 2016: Cedric Ford, 38, killed three people and wounded 14 others lawnmower factory where he worked in the central Kansas community of Hesston. The local police chief killed him during a shootout with 200 to 300 workers still in the building, authorities said.

- Feb. 20, 2016: Jason Dalton, 45, is accused of randomly shooting and killing six people and severely wounding two others during a series of attacks over several hours in the Kalamazoo, Michigan, area. Authorities say he paused between shootings to make money as an Uber driver. He faces murder and attempted murder charges.

- Dec. 2, 2015: Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, opened fire at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding more than 20. They fled the scene but died hours later in a shootout with police.

- Oct. 1, 2015: A shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, left 10 people dead and seven wounded. Shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, exchanged gunfire with police, then killed himself.

- June 17, 2015: Dylann Roof, 21, shot and killed nine African-American church members during a Bible study group inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Police contend the attack was racially motivated. Roof faces nine counts of murder in state court and dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes.

- May 23, 2014: A community college student, Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in the area near the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus. Authorities said he apparently shot himself dead after a gun battle with deputies.

- Sept. 16, 2013: Aaron Alexis, a mentally disturbed civilian contractor, shot 12 people dead at the Washington Navy Yard before he was killed in a police shootout.

- July 26, 2013: Pedro Vargas, 42, went on a shooting rampage at his Hialeah, Florida, apartment building, gunning down six people before officers fatally shot him.

- Dec. 14, 2012: In Newtown, Connecticut, an armed 20-year-old man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 26 people, including 20 first graders and six adult school staff members. He then killed himself.

- Sept. 27, 2012: In Minnesota's deadliest workplace rampage, Andrew Engeldinger, who had just been fired, pulled a gun and fatally shot six people, including the company's founder. He also wounded two others at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis before taking his own life.

- Aug. 5, 2012: In Oak Creek, Wisconsin, 40-year-old gunman Wade Michael Page killed six worshippers at a Sikh Temple before killing himself.

- July 20, 2012: James Holmes, 27, fatally shot 12 people and injured 70 in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

- April 2, 2012: Seven people were killed and three were wounded when a 43-year-old former student opened fire at Oikos University in Oakland, California. One Goh was charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder, but psychiatric evaluations concluded he suffered from long-term paranoid schizophrenia and was unfit to stand trial.

This country needs more than prayer at this moment.