It’s hard to sit down to blog about real estate or neighborhood matters when the whole nation is reeling again after a senseless mass shooting and the deaths of so many innocent people. There are so many family members mourning the loss of their loved ones today and it is all a tragedy that could’ve been easily avoided.

I don’t have the answers. I know plenty of responsible gun owners who recoil at the prospect of having their second amendment rights affected in any way. However, it is completely ludicrous that a fundamentalist of any ilk could legally obtain a machine assault type rifle. There is a breakdown of common sense when it comes to buying weapons in this country.

I know many other individuals who work in the mental health field and say it’s imperative that the government needs to allocate more funding towards mental health issues and come up with ways to manage this escalating problem. That’s probably true- research and money could fix a lot of diseases in all areas of medicine, both mentally and physically. But lately, these killers and terrorists wouldn’t necessarily be found in clinical trials and therapy groups. They are religious nuts who have essentially been brainwashed.

All I know is this has become too routine and I don’t like living in a world that feels unsafe. There are certain professions that you accept danger as part of the job: police officers, firefighters, soldiers. But workers in an Inland Regional Center? Whose sole purpose was to help those in need? No one who showed up for work that day could have foreseen what would play out in a bloody and terrible way only a few hours later.

Every outsider, especially in Southern California, is full of shock and sadness today, maybe still tomorrow and even through the weekend. But then the images slowly fade to our memory and life goes on. The guards go down until the next tragedy occurs. And the sick part is that we don’t even think ‘if’ the next tragedy occurs. It’s ‘when.’ And none of us are really outsiders.

If this could happen at an innocent place like the Inland Regional Center, then can’t it happen anywhere? It’s a depressing and maddening thought and one I hope my children and their children don’t have to face. At a certain point, we have to stand together and say enough is enough and a change needs to be made. No one wants to live in fear and have our lives be at the mercy of a handful of lunatics.

Maybe soon I can return to a lighthearted blog but today I’m still angry about the recent San Bernardino shooting and I really hope our elected officials are angry, too. When will the next time be the last time??