The tragic school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day claimed seventeen lives and left fifteen wounded, perpetrated by 19-year-old Nicholas Cruz, a known troubled individual with a violent history. Despite prior police involvement at his residence and a threatening YouTube comment under his name about becoming a professional school shooter, the FBI failed to identify or act on the warning. Media coverage quickly turned to repetitive reporting and calls for tougher gun control laws, inflating the number of school shootings this year to eighteen by including incidents like suicides and accidental discharges, though only five occurred during school hours with students present, and just four involved intent to harm students. The Kentucky shooting a few weeks prior, where a 15-year-old killed two and injured fourteen, stands as a stark reminder of the reality, even if statistics are sometimes manipulated for political gain. Blame was cast on American culture, conservative groups, and political figures, with unfounded claims that recent policies eased gun access for the mentally ill, though no such policy change occurred, and existing federal law already prohibits gun ownership by those deemed mentally unfit, a designation Cruz never received. National discourse on school shootings centers on four main causes: the abundance of guns and lax control, countered by arguments that law-abiding citizens rarely commit crimes and concealed carry laws deter violence; the influence of psychotropic drugs causing violent behavior; the unchecked actions of the mentally ill amid costly and controversial mental health interventions; and a societal desensitization to violence through media and games, fostering a generation numb to human suffering. Despite these discussions, no solution fully addresses the underlying issue of human nature and the heart's capacity for violence, suggesting that without a return to morality, such tragedies will persist.

The tragic shooting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte late on a Tuesday afternoon claimed the lives of two students, 19-year-old Ellis Parlier and 21-year-old Riley Howell, while injuring Drew Pescaro, 19, Sean Dehart, 20, Emily Houpt, 23, and Rami Alramadhan, 20. Riley Howell, an ROTC cadet, heroically tackled the gunman, potentially saving many lives at the cost of his own. The shooter, 22-year-old Trystan Andrew Terrell, a former student who had dropped out months earlier, still possessed a valid campus ID, enabling his access to the campus. He has been charged with two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, possessing and firing a weapon on educational property, and assault with a deadly weapon. Terrell confessed to deliberately choosing a large classroom where anthropology students were giving presentations, sitting among spectators for about ten minutes before opening fire without warning or apparent motive. Charlotte-Mecklenberg police chief Kerr Putney noted the randomness of the attack, stating that no specific person was targeted, leaving the motive unclear and deeply unsettling. Terrell also admitted to studying the Sandy Hook attack in-depth and had been preparing for this incident for several months. Reports indicate he was diagnosed somewhere along the autism spectrum, raising questions about possible influences such as psychotropic drugs, which have been linked to other mass killers, though this remains speculative. According to the Washington Post, over 226,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, highlighting the ongoing trauma and frequency of such events in the United States. These incidents reflect a brutal disregard for human life, necessitating constant vigilance and situational awareness to hopefully avoid such tragedies, while trusting that God remains aware and shields us from the worst of these nightmares.