Opinion

Shotgun horror at Colorado high school

Shots fired.

How terrible that we have become accustomed to hearing these words in connection with a school. And how cruel that the latest shooting — at Arapahoe High School in Colorado — came on the eve of the anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, just one year ago.

At Sandy Hook, gunman Adam Lanza killed 27 people, including 20 young children and his own mother, before taking his own life. At Arapahoe, the gunman was himself a fellow student, who shot two people before turning the shotgun on himself. We don’t yet know the reason for this shooting, except that the student walked into the school asking for a specific teacher.

No doubt we will not know the full facts about what went down for some time. Until we do, we’ll hold off on making policy prescriptions. As we have learned from other shootings, the information changes. We now know, for example, that Adam Lanza’s shooting spree was not just a matter of his access to his mother’s weapons. It also had to do with his untreated mental illness. Together these proved deadly.

At this moment, our thoughts are with the two students shot, their families and a Colorado community that has now seen Arapahoe High added to the grim drumroll of US school shootings. That it comes on the sad anniversary of Newtown only reminds us of the many there who carry on with hearts forever heavy with the loss that no American parent, teacher or family member should ever have to bear.