Eight years ago, a crazy gunman killed a student at Case Western Reserve University and then shot two other people, including my wife, in a seven hour rampage until he was captured by the SWAT team. Reflecting on this, I came up with this simple statement about how easy it is for angry, unbalanced people to obtain handguns and automatic weapons in our society:
"Every society has crazy people. But we arm ours better."
There will always be mentally unstable people. In a society filled with hatred and guns, horrible violence is inevitable. But in a society in which civilized behavior is emphasized, where everyone is compassionately cared for, where conflicts are resolved through discussion and legal means, and where access to guns is limited, there will be far fewer shootings of the kind we saw today. Let this incident inspire us to renew our efforts to create a mature, civilized society.
P.S. My wife's physical injuries were relatively small and she recovered fairly quickly. But some of the mental wounds still persist.