Perspective by Petula Dvorak
Columnist
I was crunching through the red and orange piles of leaves on my son’s New England campus during parents’ weekend Sunday morning when I saw the news alert: “8 people shot near JMU this morning.”
Oh no.
I immediately texted my friend whose son is a freshman at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., where gunfire ripped through an outdoor party crowd early Sunday.
“he got home around eight and went right to his dorm room so no driving around,” she replied. Whew.
But silly me. A similar event had just unfolded less than a mile from us.
“6 shot during after-hours party at warehouse in Worcester, police say,” one headline read.
Mass shootings — they’re everywhere. A third of young Americans — the ones who grew up playacting their own massacres during grammar school active-shooter drills — say they have experienced gun violence personally.