And we will likely never know why

33 Dead in "horrific" campus shooting

I was 11 years old when the first occurance happened: sniper Charles Whitman killed 14 people and injured dozens at University of Texas in August of 1966 and I remember it still. Then came Columbine, and for a time it seem that every 6 weeks, as regular as clockwork, there was a shooting at some high school in the states. We in Canada were not immune, there was Taber Alberta, and L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, and others. Now, frighteningly, it seems that there are too many occurances to list.

The thing is, there will never be a satisfactory answer to the question of "Why?" In the end, even if we could get inside the head of the shooter, we would not find an answer, because truly, there is no satisfactory answer. Were they suicidal and wanted to take a bunch of people with them? Did they want a "blaze of notoriety" that their lives otherwise would never have brought them? What is the "short circuit" in the brain that erases everything except the urge to kill, and then to die?