Another school year, another mass shooting.

As I write this, there have been at least 326 mass shootings in 2026. The latest involved a 16-year-old boy shooting and killing three kids and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon on October 15.

According to police, the shooter – identified as Griffin J. John II, a former special needs student at the school – fired into a special education classroom before he was fatally shot by a man who just happened to be passing by. Another child and teacher were injured in the shooting.

The boy’s mother purchased the weapon he used around his birthday in August, according to multiple reports. It was the 10th mass killing at an elementary or secondary school in the U.S. since 2006, and as of this writing, police have no motive for his horrendous attack.

Once again, the horror of school shootings — and mass murders in general — has reemerged at the forefront of American society: Columbine, Colo. (1999); Virginia Tech (2005); Sandy Hook, Conn. (2012); the Navy Yard in Washington (2013); Oregon (2015); the Pulse nightclub in Orlando (2016); Sutherland Springs in Texas........

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