The same day that eight students and an English professor were killed and nine others injured by gunfire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, this tweet popped up online:
The day after the Roseburg event, five more were shot and one killed in a Baltimore shopping mall, and another four shot, three of them killed (including the shooter) in Inglis, Florida. They were the 295th and 296th mass shootings (defined as an incident in which four or more people are shot) in the United States in 2015. That's more than one per day so far this year.
There have been 45 gun-related incidents in American schools in 2015. Of these, 32 involved one or more people getting shot; in 16 cases, at least one person has died. As of today, half of the country's 50 states have already had at least one such incident.
America has become a country of startling statistics like this. After every successive shooting, a hundred new articles rattle off the latest, or the same. Post-shooting conversation has become its own genre.
Personally, I don't know how our country moved past the murders of 20 six- and seven-year old children in 2012 in Newtown, CT, without any change happening. But it did.
There have been moves on the local level in some places — Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and San Francisco have all banned high capacity gun magazines (more than eight bullets), as have six states, the District of Columbia and a number of smaller cities.
But there have been 142 gun related incidents at schools since Newtown. Of the 12 worst shootings ever in US history, six have happened since 2007. The Oregon shooting is the sixth-worst school shooting in US history.
Also, every American state now permits at least some gun owners to carry concealed weapons. In seven states, you don't even need a permit to do so. In five other states, you don't need a permit, but there are restrictions, such as you have to be a citizen of that state or you can only conceal a handgun.
Yes, in the first seven states, you can conceal any gun that you legally own, which at this point seems to include everything short of a bazooka. And the bazooka lobby is no doubt growing.
I've listened to American schoolteachers talk about the plans that run constantly in their heads about what they'll do should shooting begin. Recently I was doing an interview with a university administrator about environmental practices on his campus; when he described having to make tough decisions as 'only having so many bullets in the chamber' I found myself shrinking into my chair with discomfort.
Australia comes up frequently in the aftermath of these incidents — the decision John Howard made after Port Arthur, and the impact it has had. In July the National Rifle Authority published in its America's 1st Freedom newsletter a piece entitled 'Australia: There Will be Blood'.
The article describes Australia's buyback as a 'mass confiscation' that has left guns in the hands of criminals while leaving everyone else defenseless. The visual that accompanies it depicts a piece of white gauze with a red blood stain in the shape of Australia. It's a crazy, threatening piece of work.
It's hard to imagine how much longer any of this can go on. But again, that's what we thought after Newtown.
My hope is that in the US, we are in that time of unsustainable stasis that Malcolm Gladwell talks about; that stretch during which nothing seems to be changing, despite mounting pressures, while deep beneath the surface that apparent stability is being eroded, so that at some point soon, everything will suddenly and permanently change.
That change can't come soon enough.
Jim McDermott is an American Jesuit priest and screenwriter with a keen interest in Australian politics.