I’ve written numerous times about how little I enjoy starting my day writing about mass shootings. Anyone who likes talking about them should get their head examined, of course, but I have a bit of a history with starting a morning off that way that doesn’t exactly help.

Regardless, I far too often find myself doing just that.

Today is one of those days. This one took place in Kansas City and has left at least three people dead, and five injured as of this writing.

Multiple people are dead after an early morning shooting Sunday in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Kansas City Police Department was called to the intersection of 57th Street and Prospect around 4:30 a.m. When officers arrived, they say they located three people – two men and a woman – dead in a parking lot and a street, department spokesperson Jake Becchina told the Associated Press.

…

Since then, officers have located at least five other victims that took themselves to the hospital with injuries. As of now, there are eight victims in total.

Now, let’s understand that 4:30 in the morning isn’t exactly your prime time for mass shootings. However, this happened outside of a business known to operate after hours. The business wasn’t named, but comments from the mayor suggest it was a bar or club that would sell alcohol all night and into the morning.

Which isn’t exactly legal.

However, this is still in the very early stages, so information is still extremely limited. As the day rolls on, we may learn much more.

What we do know is that authorities say three people are dead and five others are getting medical treatment. We don’t know how severe the injuries are and nothing else. There may also be other injuries that just haven’t been identified–sometimes people with more minor injuries are already on their way to the hospital before the police and ambulances get there–but we’ll just have to see.

There is also the unfortunate chance that some of the injured won’t make it, thus driving up the number of fatalities, though I genuinely hope that’s not the case.

Either way, don’t make a big deal out of the numbers changing as we learn more information.

No doubt, this will spur more calls for gun control in Kansas City, because that’s what happens after a mass shooting.

However, for right now, everyone should hold off until we actually know something.

It’s unlikely this was the result of someone wanting to kill as many people as possible like we see in most mass shootings. The time alone suggests this was some kind of altercation that got very violent, very quickly. It just looks like a number of likely innocent people got caught up in the crossfire.

That may not pan out to be the case, though, as the business in question and/or its patrons may have been targeted for some other reason, though I sincerely hope not.

Edit: I wrote this before the morning coffee kicked in and thought this was sometime this morning, completely missing the word “Sunday.” My apologies for this as it’s not actually a breaking story. There’s not much I’d change, though I did remove mentions to it being this morning, but still…I’ll take the hit on this one, guys.