An actual reaction to news, kinda

So many shootings lately. It reminds me of this Atlantic article on high school suicides in Palo Alto, which have kind of gone viral -- and oh, by the way, one of the engineers discussed in that story is one I have worked closely with. His daughter killed herself about six months before I was assigned to the project he was leading. Is that part of why he was so kind to me? Who knows? Anyway, heartrending, and startlingly personal to see such a thing in a national magazine.

The point is that seeing someone else do a thing makes it seem realistic; puts it on the table as an option. And once something's on the table as an option, if it's crazy and irreversible enough, it only takes one day or one hour in which it seems like the right option to one person, and then things are bad. See also I Don't Like Mondays -- "A silicon chip inside her head had switched to overload". It doesn't really take a bad person.

Anyway, mass shootings are now in people's minds as a thing that is done in this country. :-/

Ironically, I understand how having a few extreme options on the table can be really calming. I think of horrible things (and decide against them) all the time. So it's hard for me to want everyone to forget again -- I just wish people wouldn't actually choose to do this thing, because it is bonkers and wrong.