Another mass shooting

AND now, an Illinois addition to the list of mass shootings that agonise all Americans on somber anniversaries — and that agonise survivors and the families of victims every day of the year. Last week already had delivered anniversaries of the Northern Illinois University shooting in 2008, and the Parkland high school shooting in 2018. Saturday’s bloodshed was at the Henry Pratt Co, a valve manufacturing firm in the western Chicago suburb of Aurora. The casualty count that authorities disclosed — six civilians killed including the gunman, five police officers wounded by gunfire — adds still more families to what Gov. J. B. Pritzker termed ‘‘a group that should not exist yet continues to grow.’’

The damage these mass shootings cause, beyond the carnage and casualty tolls, is incalculable. They occur so frequently that we Americans have factored them into our culture. In everyday life we now acknowledge a risk, an expectation even, that at any moment gunfire may shatter normality. Schools, churches and offices all might be targeted, so every wellprepared student, congregant or worker cases buildings for escape routes and hiding places. Safety drills must be scheduled. Children must be introduced to the idea of facing gunfire so they know what to do if it happens.

Early speculation about a motive centred on a workplace issue, but we can’t know whether the catalyst was one person’s despair or selfpity or aggression or . . . something else. This killer takes the demented logic of his plot with him to the grave. We profoundly wish he had not taken innocents with him.