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I can’t remember when I first started feeling anxious in the wake of mass shootings, but I know it wasn’t Columbine. I was a freshman in college when it happened, and back then it felt like a terrible, singular event. We didn’t talk about systematic change in the aftermath, because it didn’t feel like a systematic problem yet. Two decades later, it has proven not to be an isolated incident, but simply a larger entry in an ever-growing list of US gun massacres. And in that time my anxiety has quietly grown, so subtly and steadily that I did not realize it. First it was simply in the aftermath of a shooting: I would walk with trepidation in public places, scanning bags that seemed large enough to conceal weapons. But it seems that we’re constantly in the aftermath of a shooting, and so that anxiety has become a sort of continual low-level hum, background noise for my life. I can’t remember when it became constant. Maybe it was Sandy Hook. Or Pulse. It was definitely there after Vegas, and never left me. (Geraldine DeRuiter, 8/9)

In one weekend, 31 people were murdered and dozens more injured in two mass shootings just hours apart in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The death toll may still grow. The shooters killed the young and old, men and women. In El Paso, the white-nationalist shooter’s intent was to claim as many Latino lives as possible. In both cities, the victims had their tomorrows taken or their futures forever altered by domestic terrorists as they shopped or enjoyed an evening out–everyday activities we all expect to pursue in safety. And in both cases, the gunmen used military-style assault weapons that were purchased legally. (Former President Bill Clinton, 8/8)

We must address why much of the gun violence in America happens — the hopelessness that blankets so many communities. Victims and community leaders fighting for their neighborhoods recognize that by the time someone picks up a gun, layers upon layers of systemic injustice have already failed them. Ending gun violence requires investing in hope to prevent people from picking up a gun in the first place. (Eric Swalwell, 8/8)

The fact that the Dayton shooter had a history of alleged physical assault, misogynist threats, fascination with sexual violence and resentment towards a “hit list” of people he wanted to kill or rape is no surprise. Mass killers and perpetrators of domestic violence share a deeply rooted grievance against people who “wronged” them and need to be taught a lesson. Much too often, this leads to the most horrific violence. (Toni Van Pelt, 8/8)

After a gunman massacred 22 people in an El Paso Walmart last week, President Trump declared that mass killers are “mentally ill monsters.” It was a convenient — and misleading — explanation that diverted public attention from a darker possibility behind such unimaginable horror: The killer might have been rational, just filled with hate. (Richard A. Friedman, 8/8)

Poverty is painful: emotional poverty, spiritual poverty, mental poverty and financial poverty all leave holes in our hearts and our rational thinking. It’s just that simple and it’s just that hard. We can’t legislate our way out of that. But we will certainly demand that someone (other than our ourselves) try. Let’s quit wasting time blaming the NRA and our legislators and get after this. We want action? Do something other than complain and blame. (Christine Marallen, 8/8)