Mass shootings have an impact on the psyche of our society writ large that a lot of other gun violence does not. They are, in simple terms, effective acts of terrorism. They terrorize. When you report on these shootings, something quickly becomes very obvious: They don't just irreparably damage the lives of the victims, their families, and their friends; they also traumatize witnesses, responding law enforcement officers, doctors, nurses treating the injured, and the community as a whole. And that trauma spreads outward like a wave.

conservative columnist Noam Blum, who said pointedly and concisely something I believe with all my heart: “Nothing is monocausal. There are just parts of our society that are unfathomably broken and they occasionally intersect in unspeakably awful and evil ways.”