There is almost nothing one can say in the wake of a horror like what happened in Texas yesterday that makes any difference.
But let me say a couple things anyway.
First, the Columbine spree as a species of terror event named after the school shooting that killed 14 people including the 2 shooters 23 years ago, has morphed. Both the Buffalo and Texas shooters planned their attacks and wore body armor, and so were able to actually penetrate armed resistance to their attacks. This level of pointless violence has become a real crisis, and our political system has been completely unable to do a single damn thing about it. The situation with regard to huge amounts of uncontrolled guns with no regulation of who owns them, whether they are trained or vetted, etc. has only gotten worse and worse.
It is now the case that many potential travelers to the US from the civilized world (which now, I would argue, lies entirely outside our borders) refuse to come here because it appears to them to be just too damn dangerous.
This state of affairs is intolerable. We have many, many ills to fix in our country, but without question this is well up on the list.