So Today there was a shooting scare at my university

[Montmorency]

First, as shocking as these shootings are I wonder if this may just be a horrible, horrible co-incidence. I remember a few years back another instance where I think we saw three in the US in a week.

It's worth noting that since the 1990's up until last year the UK, then Australia and now New Zealand, simple banned guns in response to major mass-shootings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._Great_Britain

We banned semi-autos in the UK after the Hungerford massacre in 1987 - 16 dead, 15 wounded, comparable to to a US shooting. We banned hand guns in 1996 after the Dunblane massacre, 17 dead, 15 wounded - mostly children. Since then there has been only one major shooting, in Cumbria in 2010.

From this we might conclude that what is unique about the US is not the impulse that causes the shootings so much as the failure to just ban gun-ownership. In fact, it seems that mass-shootings are a significant problem in anglophone societies and the only effective solution has been draconian firearms bans.

It is a coincidence in that the shooters were not explicitly organized, but with trends under Trump I firmly repeat that the ideological and political component of the violence is an important element in the recent timeframe. Gun availability and gun culture is one thing (and don't forget toxic masculinity), but there is an additional layer in the echoing of 'lone wolves who all happen to believe what the President believes and want the same things.' That's the gap between societal ill and sectarian violence.

Edit: In a pleasing turn if you hate all subtlety, this was one of the photos the El Paso shooter Liked with his Facebook profile. One of the contemporary memes floating around is that the universe needs to fire its writing team, the implicit metaphysics of which you would probably remark on.