More than five years after his son was gunned down in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Richard Berger still asks why.

Why Stephen Berger was killed the day after celebrating his 44th birthday. Why the gunman rained bullets over the Las Vegas Strip in 2017, turning a country music festival into a bloodbath. Why the massacre’s death toll didn’t shock U.S. leaders into doing more to prevent that kind of violence from happening again and again.

Why?

“It’s just a hole in our hearts,” Berger said. “We just don’t know, and we just don’t know what to say.”

For the Bergers, the families of the other 59 victims in Vegas — and relatives and friends of countless others slain in mass killings across the country in the years since — the questions loom just as large now as when the crimes happened. Yet the carnage continues.

Over the first four months and six days of this year, 115 people have died in 22 mass killings — an average of one mass killing a week. That includes the bloodshed Saturday at a Dallas-area mall where eight people were fatally shot.

The total represents the highest number of mass-killing deaths this early in the year since at least 2006, an Associated Press data analysis shows, and the deaths were already happening at a record pace before the horror unfolded in Texas.

Experts point to a few contributing factors: a general increase in all types of gun violence in recent years; the proliferation of firearms amid lax gun laws; the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including the stress of long months in quarantine; a political climate unable or unwilling to change the status quo in meaningful ways; and an increased emphasis on violence in U.S. culture.

Such explanations are little comfort not only to the families ripped apart by the killings but to Americans everywhere who are reeling from the cascading, collective trauma of mass violence.

This year’s killings have happened in different ways, from family and neighborhood disputes to school and workplace shootings to explosions of gunfire in public spaces. They’ve taken place in rural as well as urban settings. Sometimes people knew their killers; sometimes they did not.

The bloodbaths are defined by the FBI as mass killings when the events involve four or more fatalities within 24 hours, not including the perpetrator. The Associated Press and USA Today have tracked and compiled extensive data on these violent attacks in partnership with Northeastern University.

The Las Vegas shooter’s motive remains unknown, even now. The high-stakes gambler was apparently angry over how the casinos were treating him despite his high-roller status, but the FBI has never uncovered a definitive reason for the slaughter, which ended with more lives lost than in any single mass killing in decades.

Contributing to 2023′s steady drumbeat of death: the grisly murder-suicide in Utah that left five children, their parents and their grandmother dead just days into the new year; the fatal shooting of six people, including three 9-year-old children, at an elementary school in Nashville; back-to-back rampages in California at dance studios and mushroom farms; and the mall shooting in Allen, Texas, on Saturday, when authorities say a gunman stepped out of a car and immediately started firing at people.

Yet while these tragic events garner an outsize amount of attention in the news media and the public’s mind, they represent only a tiny fraction of overall gun deaths.

Far more frequent are fatal shootings involving fewer than four people and deaths from domestic violence. And then there are the suicides, which make up more than half of the 14,000 gun deaths so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which monitors news media and police reports to compile data.

Still, mass killings spark the deepest fear in most people’s hearts.

“People around the country all send their kids to schools — and they worry about if they send their kid to school, are they going to get shot?” said Daniel Webster, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

The fact is, though they are less common than other gun deaths, the mass killings keep happening — 20 years after Columbine, 10 years after Sandy Hook, five years after Las Vegas, and less than one year after massacres at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Which leads back to the same haunting question: Why?

People who study such violence are also perplexed by the sustained pace of the brutality.

“We have plenty of examples of things that seem to be at the breaking point in this country,” said Katherine Schweit, a former FBI executive who created the agency’s active shooter protocol after Sandy Hook. “When I was asked to work on this in 2013, I didn’t ever imagine 10 years later I’d still be working on the same thing.”

It will take years — if it’s even possible — for researchers to pinpoint what’s behind the drastic increase in gun violence. Advocates say there are measures that could perhaps avert such crimes — firearms reform and weapons bans among them — but note there is little appetite on Capitol Hill to implement them.

“I think the United States has a relationship with guns unlike any other country in the world,” said Kelly Drane, research director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “These events are a consequence of our failure to put in place prevention measures.”

President Joe Biden, an ardent advocate of stronger gun control, is frustrated with Congress’ unwillingness to pass a ban on some semi-automatic rifles in the face of the powerful gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association. The NRA did not return an online request for comment.

Lawmakers did pass what, for them, marked a milestone gun violence bill that toughens background checks for the youngest buyers, keeps firearms from more domestic violence offenders and helps states use red-flag laws that enable police to ask courts to take deadly weapons away from people who show signs they could turn violent. Biden signed the bill into law last year.

The legislation and other measures have done little to slow the pace of violence or alleviate the nation’s pain, which has been further exacerbated by the pandemic, climate change and the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder by police.

“These tragedies compounded one after the other, making it almost too much to bear,” said Roxanne Cohen Silver, a psychology professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studies coping with traumatic life events.

The mass killings, Silver noted, “are just another tragedy on top of all of these other psychological and emotional challenges.”

Stephen Berger ’s father, Richard, is now 80. He spends his days with his grandchildren — one is a soccer goalie who reminds him of Steve, who had a passion for basketball. Their family awards annual athletic scholarships at Stephen’s high school.

Berger watches the teenagers as they approach the next phase of their young lives, flush with promise and full of life. But his own son is dead, and five years later he’s still left wondering:

Why?

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Robin Lowe is former mayor of Hemet, and a conservative voice in our valley

I would like to cite some information from local and national news concerning California over the past few days…and indeed the past few years.

California was ranked dead last in Chief Executive magazine’s 2016 “best and worst small states for business” survey.

California has among the highest sales-tax rates in the US.

California has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the country, and has the second highest gas tax in the country while it also has among the most expensive traffic tickets in the nation.

California has disastrously high unemployment.

California has among the lowest credit/bond ratings in the entire country.  People are being taxed so badly they can’t even afford to live in houses which have been in the family for decades.

In one of the local newspaper, we read that Riverside County has one of the worst commutes in the country.

Where is all the tax money going?

I ask, “In Sacramento what are they doing to help the local communities and where is all this tax money going? 

I just read where, to buy a new home here, your income must be a staggering $120,000-plus to qualify. 

How long are the people of California supposed to put up with this kind of taxation and the ignorance of Sacramento politicians, and those local politicians who serve them? 

We need local, county and state politicians who represent the best interests of their constituents, and not the best interests of those who live in, and govern from, Sacramento.  For the last 48 years, Sacramento politicians, and those local politicians who have served them have used tiny communities as there own piggy bank.  They have squandered the money funneled from local communities. Small cities like Hemet have been systematically raped of local revenue by Sacramento and it’s local pols: they’ve then used these dollars to their own advantage instead of giving that money back to us, at the local level. 

This must stop, and to do that, we must demand more of our local politicians, and we must change the power structure if we are ever to change the course of our local communities. 

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Splash Pads: Responses From Our Readers

In last week’s Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle print edition, we wrote an article asking our readers if they thought the addition of a splash pad would benefit our community. We were pleased by the number of responses; many parents/grandparents were thrilled with the idea. Others in the community were worried about the funding, keeping the park sanitary, keeping unwanted trespassers out, and preventing the park from vandalism were all opinions that were had by many who aren’t in favor of a splash pad to be added. If you read the article, it stated that the funding of the project would come via government grants for underprivileged cities, not taxpayers’ pockets. Also more often than not, the water at these parks only operates between 12-5 and they are usually fenced in. Here are some of the responses from the community about the idea of Hemet or San Jacinto building a splash pad.

“Yes! We would love to have it in our valley we have children that would enjoy it so much! We hope we can get this a pass and get one here.”- Kathy Meza

“I have lived in this community for 20 years, and it seems to get hotter every summer. We could definitely use some better parks and splash pads. It would 100% help as long as we can keep the town’s unsavory homeless population out of them. I have a 1 1/2 yr old and my husband, and I currently have to drive to Temecula to take her to a nice safe, drug-free park.” – Desiree Ortiz

“An interesting idea. First, consider the median income, and home prices in the areas that were mentioned already have a splash pad. The taxes in those areas can support something like this. Now, consider the same for this area. Median income and the home price is significantly lower.

If a grant could be acquired to pay for a splash pad, there is still upkeep and insurance, which would be a pretty penny. Can this area afford those costs and not take money away from other valuable services?

I think a splash pad would be awesome. However, I am concerned about the long term feasibility.” – Jo Ann Roettgen

One reader even suggested that it be built right outside of the police station, that would be one way to ease some of the concerns that many members of the community have. Another suggested we use the state grant money to build a skatepark and look to re-opening the community pools or convincing the local high schools to have free-swimming hours at their pools during the summer.  Many people in our community think a free/very cheap splash pad would make a positive difference in our cities.

The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle looks forward to interacting with you more if you want to respond to the idea of having a splash pad or have a suggestion for our next “Questions to the Community” article, email VCsportsKyle@gmail.com

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