San Bernardino marks 355th mass shooting in U.S.

That sobering statistic from the University of Alabama Department of Criminal Justice was again brought to the forefront Wednesday, when a couple killed at least 14 people in San Bernardino, California – the deadliest mass shooting in the USA since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, three years ago.

As described in the article “The Mission-Oriented Shooter: A New Type of Mass Killer”, a mission-oriented shooter is a person whose mission is to kill as many people as possible, or to achieve maximum lethality.

The U.S. has seen 355 mass shootings so far in 2015, according to ShootingTracker.com, which tracks deaths by guns in America.

Suddenly, the little-noticed crime in Georgia became the second mass shooting in a single day – and the third since Robert L. Dear opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic last week in Colorado Springs, Colo.

And with another mass shooting comes the conversation of gun control. The Mass Shooting Tracker, as its called, differs from other shooting databases in that it uses a broader definition than the FBI’s old four-fatality rule: If bullets strike four people in the same attack, that’s a mass shooting.

Wednesday’s violence brought that toll to 42 people killed and at least 28 injured. After initial investigation, authorities said the OR gunman had a cache of 13 weapons, body armor and ammunition. “But likely 88 other people died today from gun violence in the United States”.

“The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in nearly every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on”, Obama said in an interview with comedian Marc Maron for his popular podcast “WTF”.

“We are the thin blue line that is entrusted in keeping this country safe, and we must be prepared to act at any given moment”, said Sheriff Van Blarcum.

The laws, whose sections included expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons, were stymied in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights lobby groups.

“As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes”.