Here is a sobering factoid for all of us to consider. In not quite four months, there have been in the United States:
- 150 mass shootings (defined as four or more people)
- 592 people wounded in shootings
- 181 people killed in shootings
You can blame it all on any number of causes, but we are not seeing this happen in other countries. So, what is the cause? How do we differ from other nations? Lack of mental health services, easy access to guns, unhappy Americans?
Flooding is the most common hazard that emergency managers have to deal with on the natural hazard spectrum. Mass shootings are ramping up the other side of the continuum.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
