Another mass shooting: Gunman reportedly kills six at Sikh temple near Milwaukee

Tragedy has struck again, this time near Wis­con­sin’s largest city:

At least sev­en peo­ple were killed, includ­ing one shoot­er, just after 10 a.m. Sun­day at the Sikh Tem­ple in Oak Creek, police said.

Four of the dead were inside the tem­ple at 7512 S. How­ell Ave. and three of the dead, includ­ing a shoot­er, were out­side the temple.

A police SWAT team entered the build­ing before noon and brought unin­jured peo­ple out of the build­ing, 7512 S. How­ell Ave.

They start­ed remov­ing injured peo­ple from the tem­ple’s prayer room.

SWAT team mem­bers were still sweep­ing the build­ing about 1 p.m. and an explo­sion was heard from the build­ing at that time. It was unclear what the explo­sion was.

The gun­man — who appar­ent­ly was act­ing alone — was report­ed­ly brought down after an exchange of gun­fire with police. One of the offi­cers, a twen­ty-year old vet­er­an of the local police force, sur­vived despite being hit mul­ti­ple times. He is being cared for at an area hospital.

Police have not released any infor­ma­tion about the alleged per­pe­tra­tor, nor con­firmed the names of the dead.

Today’s tragedy in Wis­con­sin is sad­ly just the lat­est in a series of mass shoot­ings that have claimed the lives of many good peo­ple in this coun­try over the last few years. Just a few weeks ago, a gun­man (believed to be James Holmes) opened fire in a crowd­ed movie the­ater in Auro­ra, Col­orado, killing twelve (Jonathan Blunk, Alexan­der J. Boik, Jesse Chil­dress, Gor­don Cow­den, Jes­si­ca Ghawi, John Larimer, Matt McQuinn, Micay­la Medek, Veron­i­ca Moser-Sul­li­van, Alex Sul­li­van, Alexan­der C. Teves, Rebec­ca Wingo) and wound­ing dozens.

Holmes is being pros­e­cut­ed for the murders.

Last year, Jared Lee Lough­n­er approached a group of peo­ple gath­ered for Con­gress­woman Gabrielle Gif­fords’ “Con­gress on Your Cor­ner” in Tuc­son, Ari­zona, and alleged­ly opened fire, killing six peo­ple (Christi­na Tay­lor Green, Dorothy “Dot” Mor­ris, John Roll, Phyl­lis Sch­neck,  Dor­wan Stod­dard, Gabriel “Gabe” Zim­mer­man) and wound­ing four­teen, includ­ing Con­gress­woman Giffords.

Lough­n­er is being pros­e­cut­ed for the murders.

Pri­or to those tragedies, there were the Hart­ford Dis­trib­u­tors shoot­ing in 2010 (in which eight peo­ple were killed, not includ­ing the per­pe­tra­tor), the Fort Hood ram­page  in 2009 (in which thir­teen peo­ple were killed), the Vir­gina Tech mas­sacre in 2007 (in which thir­ty-two peo­ple were killed). The list goes on, and on, and on.

Most of the per­pe­tra­tors (or alleged per­pe­tra­tors) of recent mass shoot­ings have been men, and many were men­tal­ly unsta­ble men.

Semi­au­to­mat­ic weapons (which have no use­ful pur­pose except to kill or injure human beings) were used by sev­er­al of the gunmen.

The list of loca­tions where the atroc­i­ties have been com­mit­ted includes just about every con­ceiv­able kind of pub­lic place: schools and uni­ver­si­ties, work­places, strip malls, hous­es of wor­ship, cafes (in the Seat­tle area’s case), even an Army base.

Accord­ing to Moth­er Jones, there have been at least fifty-sev­en mass mur­ders car­ried out with firearms since 1982, in thir­ty of the fifty states.

That’s a rate of near­ly three per year.

Today’s tragedy means the list will only grow longer. And unfor­tu­nate­ly, our elect­ed lead­ers’ response prob­a­bly won’t go beyond express­ing con­do­lences and com­mit­ting resources to aid in the forth­com­ing inves­ti­ga­tion by local authorities.

To their cred­it, both pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates wast­ed no time in say­ing some­thing after the news of the shoot­ings broke.

“Michelle and I were deeply sad­dened to learn of the shoot­ing that trag­i­cal­ly took so many lives in Wis­con­sin,” Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma said in a statement.

“At this dif­fi­cult time, the peo­ple of Oak Creek must know that the Amer­i­can peo­ple have them in our thoughts and prayers, and our hearts go out to the fam­i­lies and friends of those who were killed and wound­ed. My Admin­is­tra­tion will pro­vide what­ev­er sup­port is nec­es­sary to the offi­cials who are respond­ing to this trag­ic shoot­ing and mov­ing for­ward with an inves­ti­ga­tion. As we mourn this loss which took place at a house of wor­ship, we are remind­ed how much our coun­try has been enriched by Sikhs, who are a part of our broad­er Amer­i­can family.”

“Ann and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the vic­tims of today’s shoot­ing in Wis­con­sin,” pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney said. “This was a sense­less act of vio­lence and a tragedy that should nev­er befall any house of wor­ship. Our hearts are with the vic­tims, their fam­i­lies, and the entire Oak Creek Sikh com­mu­ni­ty. We join Amer­i­cans every­where in mourn­ing those who lost their lives and in prayer for heal­ing in the dif­fi­cult days ahead.”