Bright, sunny again this Sunday morning — two days in a row with full-tilt shine, but much-colder, though.
Chilling in the sun.

Today also, second anniversary of the ‘shooting‘ at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. —  chilling there tragically eternal
Yet, since then ‘school shootings remain common across the United States‘ — 95 since then, the latest just last Friday.

(Illustration found here).

Shannon Watts, founder shortly after Sandy Hook of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America: “It’s astounding. There is no other developed country that would tolerate this kind of gun violence around school age children.”
Apparently, not only ‘tolerate,’ but also seemingly allow to proliferate.

The incident on Friday near Portland, Oregon, has been maybe-considered gang related, four young people ‘affiliated’ with an ‘alternative‘ high school were wounded, one critical, and cops supposedly have arrested a guy (via CNN). The school ‘…enrolls about 200 at-risk students who “have either been expelled or dropped out of public high school and many are homeless.”
Last June and just a few miles away in the Portland vicinity,  a student at a ‘regular,’ public high school, shot and killed another student before killing himself.

According to ‘Everytown For Gun Safety,’ since Sandy Hook Elementary, these ‘common‘ shootings have claimed 45 lives with 78 non-fatal gunshot injuries. And: ‘In 35 shootings— more than a third of all incidents — at least one person was shot after an argument or confrontation escalated and a gun was on hand.’

Or quick to hand.
In the US Congress, bolt-action bullshit, and it will way-most-likely continue:
Last week, yet another cry in the gunslinger wilderness. On Capitol Hill, a gathering to help push some type of gun legislation to curb this mass killing.
From the CTPost in Bridgeport, Conn:

“Our hearts are broken but our spirits are not,” said Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., whose district includes Newtown, site of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre that took the lives of 20 children and six adults.
“We are resilient. We cannot allow this to be the new normal.”
To just-elected lawmakers, Esty said, “Welcome to Congress. It’s time to do your job.”

Yeah right! Meat of the story:

Last year, the Senate blocked a bipartisan bill to expand background checks to gun shows and other instances of private gun sales between individuals where such checks are not currently required.
With Republicans controlling the Senate as of January and continuing to hold the House of Representatives, the job of getting the background-check bill approved does not get any easier.

And the gun-crazed Americans — from Pew Research last Wednesday:

For the first time in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys, there is more support for gun rights than gun control. Currently, 52 percent say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while 46 percent say it is more important to control gun ownership.

A 7 percent swing since January 2013, just a few weeks after Sandy Hook.

In September, the FBI released a report (via Time) that ‘…including analyses of “active shooter” incidents and annual totals of casualties since 2000, all of which seem to point to one conclusion: The U.S. is experiencing more mass shootings than ever.’

Taken together, off campus or not, shootings remain common as part of another weird ‘new normal.’