In the last month or so...

...I turned to someone -- I think it was my wife -- and said something like, "You know, we haven't had one of those mass shootings in a while, have we? We're about due." And I wasn't kidding or being sarcastic or anything. I was just making an observation.

That's how bad things have gotten in this country.

I heard a lot about "forgiveness" over the weekend, but it's too soon for me to think about that. Maybe it reveals some flaw in me as a person, but I'd rather we first talk about mental illness, racism and/or guns. And what we expect to do about any or all of them.

And the sad, depressing thing to me is that the truth is: We'll do nothing in the aftermath of this shooting about mental illness, racism or guns. As someone on TV said last week (I think it was Larry Wilmore), if we couldn't do anything after the Sandy Hook shooting -- when 20 schoolchildren were killed -- then we'll never do anything.

In the video above, President Obama says:

"You don't see murder on this kind of scale with this kind of frequency in any other advanced nation on earth. What's different is not every country is awash with easily-accessible guns. And so I refuse to act as if this is the new normal."

I admire his spirit. But it's hard to be optimistic, isn't it?