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Romano: The one question we've never answered about mass shootings

 
Orlando Torres, 53, of Orlando, center, is flanked by friends Alex Bermudez of Kissimmee, left, and Barb Crabtree of Gainesville, right, during a prayer vigil for victims of Sunday's mass shooting, at Joy Metropolitan Community Church in Orlando. Friends of Torres said he was injured in the neck and the right arm during the shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times

Orlando Torres, 53, of Orlando, center, is flanked by friends Alex Bermudez of Kissimmee, left, and Barb Crabtree of Gainesville, right, during a prayer vigil for victims of Sunday's mass shooting, at Joy Metropolitan Community Church in Orlando. Friends of Torres said he was injured in the neck and the right arm during the shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times
Published June 13, 2016

The question seemed to arrive somewhere between innocence and incredulity. A 12-year-old voice cutting through the emotional clutter of the moment.

"Why,'' my son asked, "does this keep happening?''

I had a dozen possible replies, but no real answer for him. And so, as I began driving toward Orlando and the scene of America's latest mass shooting Sunday morning, it occurred to me that it was the one question most of us never seem to agree on.

I know what the president thinks. I heard him talk about it on the radio as I sat in my car outside of the Orlando Regional Medical Center, where a team of trauma doctors had assembled inside and TV satellite trucks lined up outside.

"This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship or a movie theater, or in a nightclub,'' President Barack Obama said. "And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be.''

I understand the president's frustration, particularly when it comes to assault weapons, but I don't think this is strictly about guns. Even the shooter had referenced the Tsarnaev brothers, who used homemade bombs to kill at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Perhaps we can be more diligent about who is able to buy guns, and we can certainly do better controlling the type of weapons available, but guns alone are not the problem.

Which means it's the motivation, not the method that we need to understand.

And I know what Donald Trump thinks. He seemed to suggest on Twitter that the shooting justifies his call to ban all Muslims from entering the country.

Except, in this case, Omar Mateen was a U.S. citizen born in New York. And while this shooting had echoes of the Islamic-inspired carnage in San Bernardino, Calif., seven months ago, religious extremism does not have a patent on mass shootings in America.

The gunmen responsible for killing 26 children and adults in an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., and 12 movie patrons in Aurora, Colo., and 32 people on a college campus in Blacksburg, Va., and nine church members in Charleston, S.C., were not Islamic terrorists. And their victims were black, gay, Christian and random.

Which means the motivation cannot be easily, nor recklessly, assigned.

And I know what the law enforcement officials said. Standing in a parking lot Sunday morning just blocks away from the Pulse nightclub where police had blown huge holes in the walls, and the gunman had created huge voids in so many lives, cops and FBI officials talked about bravery and vigilance and doling out justice.

It's true that Orlando police officers risked their own lives, and courageously saved many others. And it's true Mateen will never kill again.

But terrorists and mass shooters do not play by the normal rules of society and humanity. They do not fear the consequences and often welcome their own demise.

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Which means tough talk has no apparent effect, and arguably could incite more violence.

So is this all about hate? Is it mental illness? Is there something unique about the United States that produces so many troubled, angry loners?

"We are in an era where a lot of our values have disappeared and our respect for each other and for the law has been trampled,'' U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson told me while standing outside of his car Sunday. "Too many people have twisted ideas of what society means, and they can't seem to tell the difference between right and wrong.

"And when you pile terrorism on top of all that, you have this volatile mix that keeps playing out over and over again.''

Not far from where Sen. Nelson stood, three women were weeping and praying on a street corner outside of a Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Why does this keep happening?

As I drove away from the roadblocks, the hospital, the mourners and the mayhem, I realized I still had no answer to offer.