In the past two weeks, communities in very different regions of the country have faced a very similar and horrific tragedy: a mass shooting.

The first happened two weeks ago when Robert Stewart walked into a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina and started shooting. In all, he killed eight people. Seven were patients, one was a nurse.

Then, late last week, Jiverly Wong, walked into an immigration community center in Binghamton, New York. Authorities say Wong went into the shooting with a plan even blocking one of the exits to prevent people from escaping. In the end, he killed 13 people before killing himself.

The site of these shootings is enough to shock anyone… a nursing home and a community center.

But how did you react when you heard about the shootings? Were you stunned to the point of sitting down? Did the stories hang with you throughout the day, your mind repeatedly returning to the tragic events?

Or, did you hear about the shootings, think “how awful,” and go on with the rest of your day? I know that is how I reacted. It sounds horrible. I even feel bad writing it. Sure, you can’t help but feel for the victims and their families. But have become somewhat emotionally immune to events? Have they happened so many times now, that we’ve built up a wall to mentally protect ourselves from the horror? Are they so commonplace now that a person walking into a nursing home and gunning down 8 people warrants only a blip on our radar, mixed in with everything else going on that day?

Consider this list of shootings from the Associated Press (excluding the NY and NC shootings):

MARCH 10, SAMSON, Ala. — A gunman kills 10 people and commits suicide in a rampage that spanned two dozen miles across the southern Alabama countryside. Police say Michael McLendon had struggled to keep a job and left behind lists of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him.

MARCH 22, OAKLAND, Calif. — A man pulled over in a routine traffic stop fatally shoots two officers and then kills two more in a gunfight in which the suspect was also killed. Relatives say Lovelle Mixon, 26, had been frustrated about not finding work and feared returning to jail.

MARCH 29, SANTA CLARA, Calif. — A man shoots and kills his two children and three other relatives, then kills himself at a family housewarming party in an upscale neighborhood. Investigators don’t yet know the motive of Devan Kalathat, a 42-year-old engineer at Yahoo.

APRIL 4, PITTSBURGH — A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opens fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them. Police say Richard Poplawski, 23, had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

APRIL 4, GRAHAM, Wash. — A man fatally shoots his five children in their mobile home and then takes his own life in his car miles away. Relatives identified the father as James Harrison. Authorities said he lashed out because his wife was leaving him.

In all, the AP reports that 53 people have died in mass shootings in just the last month. That doesn’t include the horror of the school shooting in Germany.
That is a tremendous amount of senseless loss. And, perhaps just as tragic as the loss of life, is our collective loss of innocence. No matter how you look at it, it’s a sad state.