We haven't had a lot of mass murders to talk about in 2024 so far, which is a good thing. Sure, the Gun Violence Archive would argue differently, but we know the issues with their reporting, so I don't actually care what they argue.

Yet the unfortunate thing is that no one believed it would go on indefinitely. Sooner or later, something was bound to happen.

And, unfortunately, it did. 

It's just not what people expected to happen.

Four people were killed and five others were wounded in and near Rockford, Illinois, on Tuesday in what the city’s mayor called a “random and senseless act of violence.”

Some of the victims, including a woman who fled a home invasion in Winnebago County and a man who tried to help her, were stabbed, officials said.

A suspect, a 22-year-old man, has been taken into custody, and police are not looking for anyone else involved in the violence at "multiple scenes" in Rockford and an area of the county shortly after 1 p.m., authorities said.

"Words can’t even express my thoughts right now," Rockford Police Chief Carla Redd told reporters. She said the suspect committed "heinous crimes."

One person was injured and in critical condition, and four others were stable after an adult man "attacked and stabbed multiple individuals," the police department said on X.

The dead have not been identified. They are a 15-year-old girl, a 63-year-old woman, a 49-year-old man and a 22-year-old man, police said.

The causes of death and injury for all victims were not clear. Not all of the victims were stabbed, Redd said, and none were shot.

We've long argued that mass murder is mass murder, that even if you could remove guns completely from the equation, you'd still have people who want to murder as many people as possible.

This is exactly the sort of thing we're talking about.

Four people are dead. Five people are injured, one critically. There wasn't a firearm involved at all.

Now, this is still pretty recent, happening just Wednesday afternoon, so our information may not be complete.

This looks like it was the result of a home invasion--the suspect is in police custody, thankfully--rather than just some random attack on the streets.

Still, there's a lesson here, and it's that one doesn't need a gun to commit mass murder. So long as the bad guy is armed in any way, he can still hurt people, and he'll be armed if you do anything short of amputating all of his limbs.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and with those injured, so that they may have a full recovery.

Somehow, I doubt this attack will make the same headlines it would have if the bad guy had used a firearm. It's part of why it seems that our media and the so-called anti-violence activists really think being murdered with a knife is somehow less bad than being shot.

Trust me, when it's someone you care about, you're not going to feel better because the weapon wasn't the demonized one. Murdered is still murdered, after all.

May the book be thrown at the suspect and, if convicted, may he rot.