Mass shootings are an unfortunate part of life right now. It’s not that we’ll experience them, thankfully. They’re still pretty rare, all things considered. What we will have to do is endure the reporting on the shooting, the endless speculations by the media about just what kind of gun control needs to be passed and the more personal thoughts about what you would do should you find yourself or a loved one stuck in the middle of such an attack.

One thing we’re told after mass shootings, though, is that these are uniquely American events. Apparently, Christchurch never happened and neither did this one.

Three people have been killed in a shooting in the Dutch city of Dordrecht, police say.

A fourth person was seriously injured in the incident in the Heimerstein district.

De Telegraaf newspaper reports that the gunman was suspected to be a policeman and the incident was a family shooting but this has not been confirmed.

The paper said the gunman was believed to be one of the dead, having taken his own life.

Local newspaper BN DeStem reported that the other two victims were children aged eight and 12, daughters of the suspect and the injured fourth victim. It said the couple were separating but still lived together.

While it doesn’t look like it meets the criteria of a mass shooting as developed by the federal government, it does meet the requirements laid out by some anti-gun groups who are trying to inflate the issue of mass shootings. Four people shot in a single event. That’s their criteria and that’s what happened in the Netherlands.

Only, that’s old information. The fourth person died overnight. So now, by pretty much every definition, it’s a mass shooting. One that happened outside of the United States.

Unless you’re trying to claim the assault weapon ban worked, of course.

No amount of gun control would have stopped it because the act was allegedly carried out by a police officer, who was presumably armed due to his job.

However, it also illustrates something else. In particular, that those who might be inclined to carry out horrific acts like this are from any walk of life and may well be trusted individuals. Tell me how universal background checks are going to change a thing when this is a freaking police officer? You’d think someone like this would pass, now wouldn’t he?

There’s a rot within people, something that’s been growing for decades now. It’s not just in the United States, either. It’s throughout the western world. There’s something that makes people think this kind of thing is acceptable, that it’s warranted when nothing could be further from the truth. The problem is, there are people who think taking the lives of others who represent no threat to themselves is all fine and well.

I’m sorry, but that’s sick.

My hope is that this will show people that mass murder isn’t uniquely American in any way, shape, or form. It doesn’t even require a gun. This is a human problem and until we face that fact, no amount of screeching about the weapons used is going to accomplish a single thing. Then again, I’m probably being too optimistic. If Christchurch didn’t kill the “it’s an American problem,” then I sincerely doubt this attack will. After all, the last mass shooting in the Netherlands didn’t.