>There are some words that shouldn’t belong in the same sentence. Of course, as I’ve said before, “shoulds” are bogus. But darn it, some words just don’t make a pair – and that’s no joke.

shooter + school
death + senseless
children + hostage
copycat + crime

There are too many eerie similarities between the latest Pennsylvania shooting and the hostage-taking in Colorado. With the gunman dead, the police may never know what stimulated him to pick up his weapons and take over an Amish one-room schoolhouse. The families may never know if he had intended them or their community as victims (for whatever reason) or if they were simply in a tragically convenient location. No one will know if last week’s shooting in Colorado inspired him, or if another event in his own life tipped him over some imaginary edge.

It’s senseless. And that’s one reason, one reason of many, that it’s so heinous a crime.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and the officers who stormed the school, some holding children as they died. May it never, ever happen again.