When NJ made history after a murderous mass shooting (Opinion)

As the country watches in shock and horror over yet another mass shooting at a school, we all mourn the loss of over 20 lives, most of their children.

It's at moments like this, especially if you have small children and grandchildren, that your heart breaks for the victims' families and what horror and sadness they must be going through.

If you read the comments on social media from average citizens and politicians, you'll see sadness give way to anger and partisanship. Many of us ask why this is happening so often now. As with many tragedies and dangers of our time many also ask, is it worse now or is it just that we hear about it so immediately and so widely through mass media?

Plenty of people are trying to exploit the tragedy for political purposes or to take out their anger and mistrust on anyone with a viewpoint that differs from theirs. The exploitation of this tragedy especially by our leaders is transparently and obviously disgusting.

Of course, any mass shooting and killing of any kind anywhere is saddening and sickening. With dizzying speed of the news cycle and all of the major events we might forget that New Jersey had a mass shooting on May 22, 2021, almost one year ago almost to the day. Twelve people were shot and two died in Bridgeton at a house party.

Here in New Jersey, we have the horrible distinction of being the site of one of the earliest mass murders in United States history. September 6, 1949.

There are a few people who were alive and have vivid memories of a mass shooting in Camden back in 1949 by a man named Howard Unruh. He was angry with his neighbor for tampering with his fence. Unruh took his 9mm pistol and walked through his neighborhood on a methodical shooting spree killing 13 and wounding 3 others.

According to "A Brief History of Mass Shootings" by Maria Esther Hammack, mass shootings in the United States can be traced back even further: to March 28, 1891, when a gunman opened fired on children and adults at Parson Hall School House in Liberty, Mississippi, wounding 14.

In 1903, a war veteran opened fire in Winfield, Kansas, killing nine people in a crowd. The list compiled by Hammack goes on.

Sadly this is not just a product of our modern society. It's happened throughout the history of the world and every state in this country.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.

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