Musing the massive number of shootings across our country coupled with the latest tragedy in Texas, I found this from Cathy T.

3500 mass shootings in America in one decade

Perspective

"For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were an American born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren't even over the hill yet.

When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII.

Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.

At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn't end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.

As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn't think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let's try and keep things in perspective. Let's be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass."

Source/author: Unknown.

I add, "In the history of the world, no country has learned from history." When the metaphorical American was in her 60's JFK, his brother Robert, Malcolm X and MLK were assassinated.

We are a violence prone country. Think of a year when we have not been active militarily somewhere in the world. George Bush reflects in his memoire of how he eroneously believed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the lives lost and billions spent only to see terrorism mushroom.

We went to Afghanistan with altruistic intentions only to withdraw, allowing the Taliban to return to power.

Violence is our culture. We see it depicted and honored through films, holidays such as Memorial Day and similar displays of our patriotism while holding a rifle.

ATTACK ON AMERICA'S CAPITOL

"In the last decade there have been at least 3,500 mass shootings, defined as incidents killing or injuring four or more people, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The rate of deaths of children under 14 has also risen sharply since the pandemic."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/biden-reaction-uvalde-school-shooting