Northern Illinois University Shooting

Any multiple shooting is tragic, (and there have been so many lately) but even more so when the images being broadcast around the world are so personal and familiar. We lived in the DeKalb, IL area for 11 years before moving to Minnesota. My husband worked on the NIU campus at the Newman Center and I spent several years working at the university as well.

To see places you’ve lived and worked, and people you’ve known become part of a national tragedy is truly devastating. One NIU student interviewed said a shooting like this shouldn’t happen here. True, but it shouldn’t happen anywhere. And yet it does, with increasing frequency, touching more lives.

In December the mass shooting at Westroads Mall in Omaha was close to home because Nebraska is my home state. This time it’s even closer. What’s been interesting over the last few months is the silence on the part of gun control advocates with each new shooting. But perhaps they don’t need to say anything, and let the mounting toll of victims tell the story.