There is a difference. In December 2012, when a 20-year-old shot and killed 20 school children between six and seven years old and six staff members of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, we were shocked. We also were surprised. We didn’t think that this kind of tragedy could happen in our country. Yesterday, when an 18-year-old gunman took a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and high-capacity magazines into Robb Elementary School in south Texas and killed nineteen children aged 7 to 10, and a teacher, the grief in the media was strangely familiar. There have already been 27 school shootings this year alone. Gun violence overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020. Active shooter rampage attacks have doubled since the coronavirus began in 2020. Children in schools across the country now participate in regular active shooter drills to train for what once was unthinkable and now seems to have become inevitable.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief of Police Pete Arrendondo met with reporters and gave the first official information about the investigation to them. He said that investigators believe the attacker “did act alone during this heinous crime.”

I don’t blame Mr. Arrendondo for his comments. He was under incredible pressure and he was facing rooms full of grieving relatives. His job is going to be miserably filled with pressure for a long time. And when people are under pressure, they sometimes get things wrong. Sometimes they make statements that are inaccurate. I just hope that the entire investigation of this crime isn’t led astray by his initial findings. He did, after all, get part of it right. The crime was heinous.

Sadly, however, the attacker, did not act alone.

I can’t begin to explain or understand what was going on in the mind of an eighteen year old who shot his own grandmother and, wearing body armor carried weapons into an elementary school and began killing at a rate that is horrific and incomprehensible. But he did not act alone.

He acted in concert with 26 others who carried guns into schools and began shooting this year alone.

He acted in concert with Senators and Representatives who have failed to provide common sense legislation to limit the access of youth and young adults to weapons designed solely for the purpose of killing other human beings. He acted in an environment that allows such weapons to be purchased without waiting periods, without adequate background checks, and without insurance or registration.

He acted in concert with a powerful and well-financed gun industry lobby that uses its resources to defeat politicians who attempt to reign in the insanity of gun violence in the United States.

He acted in concert with the National Rifle Association, which will open its annual meeting with exhibits in just a couple of days in Houston, Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Texas Senator Ted Cruz will address the crowd and demonstrate how important the money from the association is to their political careers. 72 hours from the carnage in Uvalde, they will be warming up the audience by accusing those asking for reasonable gun control of using the tragedy for political gain. The hypocrisy of their actions have become standard fare in a country where a former President continues to accept the results of a fair election without producing any evidence of his claims. He, too, will be addressing the NRA meeting.

The attacker did not act alone.


There is, however, something unique about the attack. Politicians and pundits recognize that this is a problem that is almost unique to the United States. President Biden asked, “Why do we keep letting this happen? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” His questions are not just for the gun lobby and the politicians and the NRA. They are for all of us. Why do we keep letting this happen.

We know what to expect. There will be a press conference with the official reading of the names of the victims. There will be photos of memorials set up on school grounds with flowers and teddy bears and pictures of innocent children. Robb Elementary School will be added to Sandy Hook and Parkland in the list of moments when we all paused in the face of overwhelming tragedy.

Perhaps, if we have any sense left at all, it will at least temporarily reignite the debate over guns in our country. Sadly, however, there is no sign that it has brought that debate any closer to a resolution that will address the violence and reduce the number of innocent victims.

The attacker did not act alone.

All of us are complicit. We have not spoken out forcefully enough. We have continued to live our lives as if this couldn’t happen in our community. We have not written to our representatives on a regular basis about the need for limits on high capacity magazines and other anti-personnel weapons. We have not educated ourselves on the incomplete development of adolescent brains that continues into the mid-twenties and makes young adults particular vulnerable to rampage. We have not insisted on public funding for mental illness and addiction treatment. We have not made this a topic of discussion in every church, in every community organization, in every city council, in every state legislature. We have not studied the free democracies of the world where gun violence is not a major killer of children and youth. We have not even read the news reports of media from other countries when tragic events like this unfold in our country. We are sadly unaware of how the rest of the world perceives our society. We have not asked every candidate in every election what they will do to reduce gun violence in our country.

The attacker did not act alone.

Until we change our behavior, there will be more attacks. The list is already too painfully long. We have already become numb to the pain and grief.

Like the community members gathered in vigil in Uvalde Texas, I do not have answers, only grief. Like them, I will not forget.