While the homicide rate has been climbing, we’ve been rather fortunate not to have any real mass shootings for a little while. I’m not talking about them the way the Gun Violence Archive counts them–you’ll never really not have one by that metric–but the way most of us think of them. We’ve been fortunate, but I suspect we’ll see one sooner or later. There’s no way they’re simply not going to happen anymore.

If and when it does happen, we’ll hear all about how these things are distinctly American, how they don’t happen in other countries. We’ll be told that this is purely an artifact of our Second Amendment and that countries with strict gun control simply don’t have these kinds of things.

Russia will be relieved to know that, especially in light of what just transpired there.

At least eight people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a university in the Russian city of Perm on Monday, officials have said.

A suspect entered the Perm State University campus, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of Moscow, “with an offensive weapon” and began shooting on Monday morning, the university said on its Telegram channel.

Some students and teachers locked themselves into classrooms during the attack, the university’s press service said, state media agency RIA Novosti reported.

Others were seen in footage captured by local media throwing their belongings out of first-floor windows before jumping down and running to safety.

A suspect in the shooting was arrested and wounded after resisting law enforcement officers, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee, a state body that handles major crimes. He has been identified as a male student, though it was not immediately clear whether he was a student at Perm State University.

At least 28 people sought medical assistance in the wake of the attack, including some who were hospitalized with injuries of varying severity, according to the investigative committee, which has opened a criminal murder investigation.

Yep. Purely an American thing.

It’s simple to believe such a thing. It’s convenient, even, and while we may have more mass shootings than you see elsewhere in the world, we’re not the only nation to have such things.

If anything, this should make it clear that while some are thrilled the CDC is ready to trip over itself to study “gun violence,” they probably would do well to spend at least some of their time studying mass shootings. If we can identify the people most likely to be mass shooters and get them treatment early, before they carry out such an atrocity, lives will be saved, and not just in the United States.

This shooting comes on the heels of the mass shooting in England that claimed six lives just over a month ago.

That’s two mass shootings in foreign countries within a six-week span while the United States hasn’t really had any.

However, one mass shooting anywhere is one too many anywhere. I sincerely wish these didn’t happen. Unfortunately, some people have issues that aren’t resolved and seem to think this is the way forward, this is what they should do.

Until and unless we figure out the riddle of that, these will keep happening.

Not just here, but everywhere.