Mass shootings may not be the everyday occurrence some like to paint them as, but they’re still tragically common. Even one in a given year is way too many.
Further, the list of cities impacted is surprisingly diverse. From Dayton, Ohio to El Paso, Texas, cities of all stripe have played host to these grizzly events.
Now, unfortunately, we have to add Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the list.
In one of the worst shootings in Wisconsin history, six people were killed during a shooting rampage on the Milwaukee campus of Molson Coors on Wednesday afternoon, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The gunman also was killed, bringing the total of known dead so far to seven. It’s unclear whether more may have been injured or killed.
“There are multiple people who have died, I believe including the shooter,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told reporters in a short briefing before 5 p.m.
Barrett said the situation is “fluid” but that law enforcement had “pinpointed a building” of interest and were performing a sweep of the building.
“The vile and heinous deadly violence that was perpetrated at the brewery complex today has no place in our society and makes no sense,” Ald. Russell Stamper said in a statement.
“The cold disregard for human lives and the lack of value for human life that was shown must be categorically denounced across Milwaukee, across Wisconsin and throughout our nation.”
Employees were notified by email that an active shooter was in or near the second-floor stairwell of the sprawling factory’s Building 4. Police responded at 2:11 p.m.
Milwaukee police said in a Tweet at 4:37 p.m. that there was “no active threat.”
As is usual in situations like this, the information we’re getting is fluid. The death toll may well increase over the next several hours as new information comes in.
At this point, we know nothing about the killer or the kind of weapon he used. Undoubtedly, we’ll be learning more about that as more information becomes available in the days to come.
What we may not learn about, unfortunately, is the motive. Far too often, shootings like this happen and we have no idea why; no inkling of what possessed someone to take a firearm and kill people indiscriminately. We generally don’t know what kind of thing sets someone off like this. It’s just not something we routinely get to understand.
Not that you can really understand something like this. Something like this isn’t really comprehensible for most of us. Nothing in the world really helps make sense of something like this.
Here at Bearing Arms, we will be keeping an eye on updates as they become available. Especially since history tells us that what happened today will play a factor in Wisconsin politics in the near future. Now’s not really the time for that, though. Right now, six families are reeling from the loss of their loved one while another tried to deal with grief while also wondering just what happened to their family member to make them want to do something like this.
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