Just a few days ago, after a deadly mass shooting in Colorado Springs, President Obama issued a statement saying, “This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.”
That was Saturday. Four days later, here we are again.
Police were searching for up to three suspects Wednesday in connection with a deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, where up to 14 people were reported killed and as many as 14 more were wounded.
“The suspects have fled,” said San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan. “We don’t yet have a motive.”
As is always the case with breaking news like this, details are still coming together, and it’s not yet clear how many victims there are, or even how many suspects may have been involved, though the local NBC affiliate reported that at least one of the suspects was believed to be wearing tactical gear.
As for the year to date, the Washington Post reports that there have been 335 days so far in 2015 — and in that time, there have been 355 mass shootings in the United States. In fact, there was a shooting in Savannah this morning that left one person dead and three others injured.
In other words, the deadly violence in San Bernardino is the second mass shooting today.
We’ll have much more on the shooting on tonight’s show.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."