Sometimes it takes more than an individual mass killing spree to comprehend just how awful these continued assaults are and the devastation they have brought to innocent families throughout the nation. So let's recount the statistics.

The latest mass killing occurred May 23 in Isla Vista, Ca., near the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus, where a mentally disturbed young man killed six people and wounded seven more before taking his own life. 

In 1999, 13 were killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; in 2007, 32 were killed at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia and eight were killed at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska; in 2008, six were killed at a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University; in 2011, six were killed and Rep. Gabby Giffords was severely wounded in Tucson, Arizona; in 2012, 13 people were killed in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater and 27 were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, and in 2013 five were killed on the campus of Santa Monica College in California.   

So, 116 people, young and old, have been killed in the last 15 years and many times that number have been wounded in needless acts of violence — and nothing has changed in terms of access to or laws regarding owning and the use of firearms. I guess that says it all.

Beau Weisman, Editor