The Next One Could Be Yours

Last night the slaughter of innocents was in Charleston, SC. Below is a partial list -- a partial list -- of mass gun killings in the US. Eventually, your city, town, church, school, shopping mall or neighborhood (and possibly one of your family members; maybe you) will be added to the list.

Count on it. Bet on it. Why? Because we worship our guns; we are a country of extreme violence; we export death as well as cultivate it here at home. The killings will continue. They always do. Dead children? Dead worshipers? Dead shoppers? Means nothing. Never has, never will. This is us. Always and forever...

-- Killeen, Texas, October 16, 1991: A man shoots dead 23 people in a restaurant and then kills himself.

-- Jonesboro, Arkansas, March 28, 1998: Two boys aged 11 and 13 kill four students and a teacher after pulling a fire alarm and opening fire from nearby woods when people streamed out of their school. Ten other children were hurt.

-- Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Two teenaged boys shoot and kill 12 fellow classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves.

-- Atlanta, Georgia, July 29, 1999: A stock market trader goes on a day-long shooting rampage, killing 12 people, including his wife and two children, before taking his own life.

-- Red Lake, Minnesota, March 21, 2005: A teenage boy kills two people at his grandfather's home on an Indian reservation and then goes to his local high school where he kills seven others before committing suicide.

-- Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007: A student goes on a rampage at Virginia Tech University, killing 32 people before committing suicide.

-- Covina, California, December 24, 2008: A man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opens fire at a family party and then sets fire to the house. Nine people are killed. The gunman commits suicide.

-- Binghamton, New York, April 3, 2009. A gunman shoots dead 13 people at a civic center for immigrants.

-- Fort Hood, Texas, November 5, 2009. US army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan opens fire at his military base, killing 13 people and wounding 42, before being overcome by police.

-- Oikos, California, April 2, 2012: A male nursing student methodically kills seven people at a Christian university.

-- Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012: A man kills 12 people when he opens fire at a movie theater showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in a suburb of Denver.

-- Oak Creek, Wisconsin, August 5, 2012: A white supremacist and US army veteran fatally shoots six people and wounds four others at a Sikh temple before taking his own life.

-- Newtown, Connecticut, December 14 2012: A young man kills 26 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school. He also fatally shoots his mother. He commits suicide.

-- Miami, Florida, July 26, 2013: A gunman kills six people in a shooting rampage at an apartment building, taking two people hostage before being killed by police after a lengthy standoff.