Mass Shootings: Now 'as American as Apple Pie'

Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Newtown. No more context is needed—we mentally amend the words "mass shooting" to each of these. And today we add another location to that list: Washington Navy Yard. "How can this country tolerate another mass shooting, after we’ve endured so many others?" asks Petula Dvorak, who cycled to the Navy Yard with her kids just two days ago. The depressing answer, she writes in the Washington Post, is that these "slaughters" in the US have simply become "practically routine."

The problem is not a rise in violent video games or bloody films, says Dvorak. "What is changing in this country is our acceptance of the way America is changing." We have grown accustomed to ignoring mass shootings the way we have grown accustomed to ignoring "panhandlers at intersections" and "wounded veterans with prosthetics on the Metro." "Mass shootings are becoming as American as apple pie and baseball," she writes. "And that’s almost as appalling as the mounting casualties." Click for Dvorak's full column. (More mass shootings stories.)