Last week’s shootings in Lincoln County neighbor Sagadahoc County – in Bowdoin, a small town like ones around here, and shortly after that, more shootings on the interstate in Yarmouth before a suspect was jailed in Wiscasset – was one of the latest instances of gun violence with multiple victims, among several this spring around the U.S. 

Does that give us pause, that it has now happened so close by that in this case a suspect was in jail in Wiscasset, off Route One, not Somewhere Else, U.S.A.? As media makers and consumers, we have come to expect people to say murder does not happen in their town and they never thought it would, but it did. It is a reaction similar in part to those after natural disasters like a tornado. 

While news of a town struck by wildfires, tornadoes, or a fatal flood wrenches the heart as much as news of gun or other violence with multiple victims, except for fighting global warming there is not much to be done about the former, save for disaster drills and other preparedness and then picking up the pieces. But when a person ends or tries to end multiple lives, and there is still the community healing to come as it would after a tornado, etc., the shootings, unlike the tornado, could have been avoided if the person had not had access to the right weapons to do so much harm so swiftly.

The incidents have been so many, and there, as people used to say, is no need of it.

Week’s positive parting thought: Rain gets gloomy when it goes on for days, but it is key to things growing. Get to Garden Club of Wiscasset’s annual plant sale, a spring tradition, Saturday, May 13 from 8 a.m. to noon at the municipal building.