The Oregon Mall Shooter and my visit to the mall with my family.

On December 11, Jacob Tyler Roberts went into Clackamas Town Center Mall and started shooting with an AR-15. He killed 2 people, wounded a 3rd before killing himself. This mall is about 1 mile from my house so we go here relatively often, maybe once a month or so. When the shooting happened, we heard the police and emergency vehicles responding and later the news helicopters flying over our house. Because this one one was so close to us, I had to explain to my 8 year old daughter what happened at the mall. She asked why someone would do that and I said I don't know. How do you explain why a person goes on a killing spree to an 8 year old?

Then Adam Lanza decided to use an AR-15 to kill 20 kids and 7 adults before killing himself. My daughter asked me again, why would someone do that? I told her I don't know. Then her teacher had to explain to her class why they're safe at their school.

Tonight, we went to Clackamas Town Center Mall. My daughter was very apprehensive and scared as we entered the mall at the food court. We walked through the mall to the bookstore and she was clinging to mom. The poor girl thinks it will happen again while we were there. Of course, she doesn't understand that the odds of something like that happening while we were there are very small. But try telling that to an 8 year old....

(Thank God I didn't have to tell her about the Aurora, CO theater shooting as she'd probably never want to go see a movie again.)

But the point of this is that gun violence has got to stop. Twice in 1 week I had to explain to an 8 year old why some asshole with a gun goes on a killing spree. That's 2 times too much. It has to stop.

It wasn't like this in my childhood. What the hell has changed in America? Why are guns so important to us? Is it ever going to change? For the sake of my daughter and children everywhere, I hope so. I'm sick of this.